


A Legend of the Asturias

by Annevar44



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Blow Jobs, Dubious Consent, Flogging, M/M, Madeleine Era, PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2017-12-30 23:38:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 39
Words: 86,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annevar44/pseuds/Annevar44
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(From a kink meme request:  Madeleine, mayor of M-sur-M, goes to Paris to meet his new Chief Inspector.  What he finds is a shattered Javert.)</p><p>                                                       *                                                    *</p><p>Madeleine and Javert are both changed men when they meet after twenty years.  Both of them bear the scars of whip and manacles, and both are seeking redemption.  Whether either can be called free, is a whole different question.   </p><p>As a bitter and violent winter envelops M-sur-M, both the mayor and his man try desperately to remain on the godly paths they have set themselves.  But as they reawaken each other's true natures, their virtuous intentions are strained to the breaking point - and their native impulses prove hard to leash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Headquarters, Paris prefecture

**Author's Note:**

> Special TW for realistic, unsexy noncon episode in ch 14 (flashback sequence) with accompanying psychological trauma.

On a gray November day, a certain man stood outside the headquarters of the Paris police. In defiance of fashion, he wore his coat collar turned up against the chill, marking himself instantly as a visitor from the provinces. A casual observer watching him mount the outer stairs might have noticed that although he was powerfully built, he ascended slowly with his head down as if bulling his way against an unseen resistance. A sharp observer -- a gendarme, for example, if one were keeping an eye on him -- might have wondered why his face twisted suddenly into a look of indescribable dread as he passed through the great bronze doors.

In fact, however, no one was paying attention.

He hesitated at the threshold. In the vast main hall a dozen officers were visible: some standing their posts, others striding by with gleaming boots and predatory faces. The floor was stone, and the officers' boots rapped against it with menacing authority. On all sides, cold marble walls rose in stark grandeur to a high arched ceiling. The entire proud edifice stood as a reminder to citizens of the unshakable power of the law and the men who enforced it. 

This particular visitor knew all about the power of the law. He entered the great hall like a cat slipping into territory held by a dog-pack, and approached the young sergeant at the front desk.

He said, "My name is Madeleine."

The sergeant bowed deeply. "Monsieur le maire. The Secretary left word to receive you as our honored guest. He will be a few minutes only. Please, come with me." Nonplussed but - like all men - not immune to flattery, Madeleine followed him down the hall into a large meeting room dominated by an oak table. "Won't you sit, Monsieur? Some tea?" 

After the door swung closed, he looked around the empty room in wonder. _Of all the places I never thought I'd be._

Three uniformed men entered a few minutes later. He had not been expecting so many, and they made him nervous since their bodies blocked the door and closed off his only exit. The man in the lead made the introductions. This was, it transpired, none other than Chabouillet himself. He was about Madeleine's own age, all squared-off angles, with a strong nose and a crisp dark beard in which a few threads of gray were visible. His attaché was M. Ecrain, a man of no more than thirty-five who had an air of affability and charm. The third man was, to Madeleine's surprise, the prefect: M. Gisquet. His face was deeply lined and framed by hair of silver. 

Gisquet waved Madeleine into a chair. "M. Madeleine! What an honor. It's a pleasure to have you here, and to supply a man as famous as yourself with the finest officer in France to be your chief inspector."

Madeleine could not help noticing that Gisquet's tone was effusive to the point of mockery, while Ecrain seemed to be stifling a grin. M. Chabouillet threw his attaché a certain look. "Fetch the inspector, will you? I imagine he will be at his usual post."

As Ecrain set off, Gisquet's smile lingered. "Our inspector is truly one of a kind. It will be hard to give him up, as he has provided us with such....satisfaction this past year. However, a man like you deserves only the best. You'll find him talented in many areas. Support me in this, Chabouillet -- do I not speak the truth?"

Chabouillet nodded soberly. "Our beloved inspector is, as you say, talented -- whether on his feet or on his knees. He has the flexibility of an acrobat at a village fair. And I must say that when he uses his tongue, well -- angels would weep!" 

Madeleine produced a polite smile. This seemed odd praise to bestow upon a police inspector, and he was now fairly convinced that a species of joke was being played. He kept his expression bland. "I see. Then I am sure he will be an asset."

"Of course," Gisquet added, "he was not so useful in his early years. But we took it upon ourselves to improve him, and as you'll soon see the results have been impressive." The doorknob rattled and Gisquet smiled. "Ah -- here he is now."

Ecrain entered. Behind him hulked a man of imposing height. His dark whiskers were severely trimmed and he was wearing a uniform so sharply creased it appeared to have been just pressed. But his head was down and he gazed at the floor with shoulders slumped. His overlarge hands hung loose at his sides. "Look smart," Ecrain addressed his charge. "You're meeting your new master." The big man raised his head. This gave Madeleine a better view of him. The broad, flared nose, dark eyes and narrow forehead, together with his bristling whiskers, gave him a somewhat bestial appearance.

When Madeleine was a child, a traveling fair had passed through his home village. Outside one tent a barrel-chested man had shouted, "Come, and see the giant wolf of the Spanish mountains! Only a sou! A real man-eater, he is - not for the faint-hearted!" Madeleine had shivered in fearful delight. But when he handed over his precious coin and stepped through the canvas flap, what he saw in the cage was not the fierce, slavering beast with bloody jaws that he had hoped for; rather, only a sad creature with drooping head and mangy ruff, blinking its dull, yellow eyes at the handful of gawkers outside the bars. 

This is what Madeleine thought of, when he looked at his new chief inspector.

Yet there was also something familiar in the man's face. The line of his jaw and the narrow forehead struck a chord in Madeleine. He frowned as he struggled to remember. Then a nameless dread crept into him, followed by wave of nausea so sudden it nearly buckled his knees. He could not remember where he had seen this officer before, but he had no doubt: they had crossed paths, and it had been long ago - before the beast called Jean Valjean had been laid to rest on the road from Digne.

He knew this man. And this man would know him.

As this realization struck him, his heart began to gallop. He shot a surreptitious look at the door.

Meanwhile, Gisquet's smile enlarged. "M. Madeleine," he said. "Meet our dear inspector. This is Javert."


	2. uniforms

Madeleine rose to his feet.

He took quick measure of the strength and weapons of the four men who stood between him and the door. He had no time for regret or reflection; there was only one possible escape. _If I leap now,_ he thought, _I have a chance--_

But he had trained himself for years to yoke the savage urges of Jean le Cric. Even as he tensed to run, the voice of the Bishop spoke sternly in his mind. Escape would win him nothing except the sad liberty of a hunted man, in which all his cunning and strength would be poured into the single narrow goal of evading capture. If he were still the creature he once was, he would already be fighting his way free: lunging out the door of the chamber, dashing down the marble hall while shouts and pistol-shots rang out behind him. But he was not that creature anymore. 

He stood fast, trembling.

Javert bowed. "Monsieur. It is an honor." His tone was curiously flat. He did not seem to notice Madeleine's hammering heart, and gave him only a hollow stare devoid of recognition. 

Was this indeed Javert? Madeleine could now see in him a shadow of the fierce young guard who once strode the grounds of Toulon. A shadow, however, was all that remained. This man was slack-faced and spiritless. What had happened in the intervening years to Javert the martinet, whose carriage was so upright he could be recognized merely by his silhouette upon the parapet at dusk - the guard who had no mercy to give or to sell - Javert, the hardest lash in Toulon?

"I am to serve you," said Javert tonelessly. "I will endeavor to please you. You must tell me if I fail. I will work hard. I will..." His voice trailed away and he dropped his head again.

Chabouillet smiled indulgently. "Yes, Javert, that's quite enough of that. I hardly think M. Madeleine has come all this way to hear you _speak."_ To Madeleine he said, "You're a worldly man, I'm sure. Let us give you a display of the inspector's skills. He has been forced to practice hard under our tutelage. Poor thing; it has not come naturally to him." He added, "But you have learned your lessons well in the end, have you not, Javert?"

"Yes, Monsieur." Javert kept his eyes down. 

"Get to it, then," snapped Chabouillet.

Javert raised his hands to his jacket and, as Madeleine watched in amazed discomfiture, undid the buttons and laid it aside. 

"Remove your waistcoat and the rest of it," said Chabouillet. "Do not waste Monsieur's time." The inspector nodded. His gaze stayed on the floor, but his hands moved faster now, and soon his waistcoat and shirt were off. His bare chest was thin and pitiful in its exposure; the visible rise and fall of his ribs seemed a greater nakedness than his lack of clothes. A pulse fluttered at his throat.

"Don't be shy," said Gisquet. "Monsieur le maire wants to inspect the goods." Javert took off his trousers and underclothes. His cock was small and seemed to shrink back against his balls in timidity.

Madeleine, who had moments earlier been riveted by fear, now felt a different kind of passion gather between his thighs. He did not know what to make of the scene before him, but his cock asked no questions. How many nights had he lain awake in the fetid sleeping quarters of the Bagne, chained by the leg and pressed on all sides by sweating, snoring bodies, while he stroked himself angrily and ground his teeth and thought of this: _The tables turned. The guard cornered and outnumbered. Stripped of his weapon, broken, begging. The prisoners circling him, pressing forward--_ The bizarre tableau was tinder tossed on a banked fire that smoldered in his depths. In the pounding salt-heat of Toulon where he'd been forged, bitter dreams were a man's only solace - and though his soul had since been raised to the light, his body was still anchored to the darkness. A man's flesh was a primitive thing. Even God could not reach it easily.

"Dear Inspector Javert," Chabouillet said in dulcet tones. "Do get on your knees now, and open wide." 

. 

For an instant Madeleine thought Javert would not comply. The man stood silent, his gaze fixed on his bare feet. They were common-looking feet, broad and ungraceful, and in another setting Madeleine would scarcely have found them noteworthy -- but here, surrounded by three pairs of polished black boots and Madeleine's own sturdy leather shoes, the vulnerability of Javert's naked toes was pitiful. 

Like an old man, Javert began lowering himself to the floor. 

Gisquet smiled and clapped a rough hand down on Javert's shoulder. The inspector's knees struck the hard stone with a thud and the officers laughed. "We are giving you a farewell party," said Chabouillet. "Aren't you grateful? Say farewell to M. Gisquet first. Then you must say farewell to M. Ecrain and myself, and then you may start making the acquaintance of M. Madeleine. Come now. Show your gratitude to your superiors." 

If Madeleine had any doubts as to his meaning, all were washed away when M. Gisquet shoved down his trousers, revealing a big red cock that jutted out from a thicket of sandy curls. Javert crawled to the prefect. His expression held no rancor, only a deep resignation. Javert offered up his mouth, and Gisquet grabbed him by the hair and sneered as he thrust himself in. 

Madeleine's thighs tightened at the sight. Would Javert not pull away? But he submitted to the intrusion without resistance, allowing his head to be yanked back and forth even when the prefect's thrusts were deep enough to gag him. The abominable act did not last long. Soon Gisquet screwed up his face as if he'd bitten into a lemon. He grunted and cursed, "Suck it, suck it, you son of a whoremonger!" Then he gave a guttural cry. Javert's Adam's apple bobbed, and Gisquet pulled out his shining slick cock and fell back into the nearest chair. Gasping, he looked to Chabouillet. "I'm done. He's yours." 

Chabouillet pulled out his cock and rubbed it over Javert's face. "You're going to miss me, Inspector. You're going to miss my fat cock. And I'm going to miss your pretty mouth, almost as much as I'll miss your hole." He seized Javert by the chin and entered his mouth violently. Ignoring the choking sounds that issued from the man's throat, Chabouillet ground his hips forward. Javert gagged and drew a ragged stridorous breath. His flanks heaved and he began to buck against his captor's grip. Madeleine's own cock had now grown as hot and hard as a poker in the fire, but the desperation of the choking man made him hold his breath in horrified fellowship. He wanted to pull Javert free but at the same time he could not move, riveted as he was with terrible fascination. He was about to cry out for mercy on Javert's behalf when Chabouillet relented and released him. Javert sucked air once, twice. But that was all he was allowed, as Chabouillet again grabbed his chin and thrust in deeply. Javert moaned. The muffled sound drew a harsh short laugh from Chabouillet. He pumped his hips a few more times, then shouted. Like the prefect, he collapsed into a chair, breathing hard. 

Javert sank down onto his hands and knees. His eyes were watering as he dragged deep draughts into his lungs. Chabouillet's spend trailed from his lips. 

There was a knock at the door. 

"Come in," called Ecrain pleasantly. 

It was the young desk sergeant. "Excuse me, messieurs. I have M. Madeleine's tea. Monsieur, would you like--" He gasped and fell silent.

At the sound of the young man's voice, Javert hunched lower and turned away. The sergeant drew back; tea slopped over the cup's rim into the saucer. Chabouillet, hoisting his trousers in no great hurry, stuffed his cock back into place and did up his buttons lazily. "Come in, Duval, come in. Join our little party. You'd like a fond fare-thee-well from your old mentor, wouldn't you? Javert, you'll let our man Duval give you something to remember him by." 

Duval thrust the tea at Madeleine. "No," he stammered. "No, it's all right. My wife -- she would not approve." He turned and fled the room. 

"Faggot," muttered Ecrain, reaching for the waist of his trousers. 

Madeleine rose, teacup rattling in his hand. His cock was shoving itself hard against his trousers. His cock did not want to wait for Ecrain to take his turn; it wanted to bury itself immediately in that hot ready mouth. "Sugar-- I need sugar for this--" He lurched out the door, conscious of the smirks that followed him. 

Duval was hunched again at his desk in the foyer. The young man looked pale. "The privies," Madeleine barked. "Which way?" Duval pointed, and he hurried out the side exit. Barely in time, he shoved down his trousers with one hand with pulled the door shut with the other, throwing the latch, clutching his cock just as his balls clenched and heat surged through him. His seed spurted in a hot jet against the wall. As he groaned and spent, his mind flew away and scalding physical pleasure rushed outward from his center. All thought was drowned out by bliss. 

But bliss was transient. When he returned to himself, he saw his come dripping thickly down the wall while the smell of piss and shit assaulted his nostrils. He glanced upward fearfully. He could imagine the Bishop's piercing eye glaring down from above. Hastily he arranged his clothes and wiped his damp face on his sleeve. Immediately he thought of acts of penance he could do in Montreuil: pray for an extra hour each night and morning, take his bread dry and have no fire in the hearth, give triple his usual alms, live even more sparingly than he already did. Perhaps this would be enough. Though he did not truly believe it.

Young Duval still looked gray and shaken at his desk. Madeleine approached him.

"Yes, monsieur?" 

He glanced around. No one was in earshot. "What can you tell me," he said softly, "about what's going on in there?" He nodded down the hall. 

The young sergeant jerked away. After a moment he said, "I don't know what you mean." 

Madeleine slipped two gold napoleons onto the desk, next to the teacup he had abandoned there in his earlier haste. "I need more sugar for my tea," he murmured. "Perhaps you keep some nearby. We can look together." Duval hesitated. His eyes lingered on the coins that glittered before him. Then with a quick motion he swept them into his pocket. 

"Yes, monsieur. Follow me." They turned down a dusty corridor, and Duval led the way into a darkened room. He lit a lamp then latched the door behind them. It was a storage room, Madeleine saw, its shelves stacked high with sheafs of paper, rows of ink bottles, bundled quills. In a low voice, Duval said, "Why are you asking about Inspector Javert?" 

"He is to come with me to Montreuil -- as chief inspector of police, or so I was told." 

"I had heard they were sending him away somewhere." Duval gave Madeleine an appraising look. "So it's to be you." 

"Yes. But what the Prefect and the others are doing to him in there -- I don't understand it. And I think you agree with me that it's an abomination." Even as he said the words he was aware of his falseness. He felt the sticky sweat between his thighs, and fresh revulsion came over him.

Duval looked away. "Yes." 

"What is his history? What do you know?" 

"There is what they say. That he-- that he betrayed the uniform. That's what we were told." 

So it was a traitor they were pawning off on him? "Betrayed it? Betrayed it how?" 

Duval shifted uneasily. "I am not privy to all the details." 

"Tell me what you know, then." He looked meaningfully toward the young man's pocket where the two gold coins were hidden. 

"He made a false report. That is what is said." Duval paused, but then pressed forward reluctantly. "It was about a year ago. He claimed to have evidence of corruption within the prefecture."

"Go on."

"Bribery. That was what he alleged. He accused some senior officers of taking cuts from the organized gangs. He submitted his report directly to M. le Prefet. I was at that desk the day he turned it in. The Prefect left an hour later - red in the face, and shaking." 

"Is it known whom he accused?" 

"Indeed." An edge had entered his voice. "Word traveled quickly. Within a day, we spoke of nothing else." He faced Madeleine with a miserable expression. "It was M. Gisquet himself. Him, and M. le secretaire Chabouillet." 

"What!" 

"But all the evidence was trumped up," Duval went on. "That’s what they say. That's what we were told. That Javert invented it all, hoping to make his own name. He was consumed by ambition and planned to advance into the head offices by destroying the reputation of his superiors." 

"I see."

Madeleine pondered. He should be shocked to hear of such treachery; but a large part of him was unsurprised. In a grim way he even found the revelation satisfying. He had known all along that Javert and the other guards - so righteous with their whips - believed in nothing and were devoid of honor or decency. "That's a grave offense," he said. "But still, does it explain--" and he looked toward the door "--all of _that?"_

Duval remained silent. Finally he said quietly, "I knew Javert well. He was my mentor when I was in training. I looked up to him." The was a catch in his throat, and he swallowed hard. "I was not the only one who did." 

"Ah. So you had thought well of him before you learned of his crimes." 

Duval clenched his hands; he seemed to struggle to find words. "I did not merely _think_ well, monsieur; I _knew._ Inspector Javert was-- He was an honest man. Rigid, and straight as a post. Ambitious, yes, and not a kind man or an easy one, but honest. And above all he was a man bound by duty." He looked squarely at Madeleine. "He would never lie. Nor would he accuse his superiors unless he had no doubt." 

_Not a kind man or an easy one._ That was the Javert that Madeleine remembered: the tall young man, his face barely shadowed by beard, bringing his cudgel down unsparingly with an arm that never grew tired. As for the rest of Duval's description: he rejected it. The Toulon guards had been monsters, nothing more. Javert, unforgiving of infractions and never swayed by pleas or groans of pain, had been among the worst.

He frowned. "The story you've told me makes no sense. Why would he submit such a report to the very man he was accusing? Only a madman would do so. Whether the report was lies or truth, he could not have hoped to go unpunished." 

That drew the ghost of a smile from Duval. "If you knew the inspector as I do, you might understand." 

"How so?" 

"You see, there is no one above the Prefect - no superior, no governing body. There was no one else Javert could bring his findings to. It was either Gisquet, or keep his silence. I suppose any other officer would have chosen the latter. But Javert -- well, he would not have been capable of keeping silent about a crime, no matter the risk to himself." He shook his head. "Maybe he thought he could make Gisquet confess. But I do not think so. I think he knew from the start he had no chance against their power." 

Madeleine took this in. Assuming Duval was telling the truth - and by the look of him, he spoke with passion and certainty - then what sort of man was Javert? A grasping traitor, he had had no trouble believing. But a man who would martyr himself for his duty? He remembered Javert's lash tearing into his back. Duval's account made no sense, but he was drawn in by the tale in spite of himself. "And so-- after he gave his report-- what happened?" 

"As I heard it? All the evidence, so carefully collected by him and his junior partner, fell apart immediately. His informants suddenly recanted, or disappeared, or washed up dead along the Seine. Files went missing. There was no hope of making a case. But it was also said that Gisquet offered Javert chance to withdraw his report. If he agreed to admit his error in public and recant his allegation, he could have taken a transfer to some out-of-the-way place to serve out his career." 

"He refused?" 

"Inspector Javert has never admitted error in his life." 

"But," said Madeleine, "Why keep him here, like this? They could have simply dismissed him. He'd be disgraced, and everyone would forget." 

"They couldn't let him go," Duval said. "The rumors spread immediately; the whole prefecture was aflame with whispers and suspicions. Javert was well thought of, you understand. Not well-liked - never that - but always respected, and most of us junior officers were in awe of him. It was he who broke up the Rue Sixieme gang five years before. There he stood in front of the whole department, all of us applauding, while Chabouillet himself pinned the Silver Cross on him. I was nothing back then, a probationary in my first year, and on that day I looked at him and dreamed that one day I would stand where he stood, and be as brave and as unyielding."

Duval's voice trembled a little, and he looked away for a moment before turning again to face Madeleine. "And so, you see, his allegations carried weight. I suppose they knew that, Gisquet and Chabouillet. That's why they had to make an example of him. They wanted to show us all that even the strongest man can be ground down." 

Madeleine understood. He had been the strongest man at Toulon, and the guards had made him suffer for it. 

"After he refused to take the transfer," Duval went on, "he disappeared. Some said he had run, but most of us assumed he had been sent to the bottom of the Seine. We were shocked when he was seen again months later. We were more shocked still, when we saw what he had become." A wistful look came over him. "From the time I was a boy in Marais, not a centime in my pocket and no shoes on my feet, I dreamed of nothing but growing up to wear the uniform. I had always thought the law was just and strong. And that men of the law were honorable." 

Madeleine thought of the tyrants of Toulon, and the rapacious officers who used to ride through his home village demanding bribes from men whose children were going hungry. He had never held any illusions about men of the law. Despite his cynicism, however, he was touched by the young man's words. Did honorable officers exist anywhere in France? And could Javert - the man without mercy - have been one of them? 

"What became of the junior partner?" he asked finally. "I suppose things went badly for him as well." 

Duval laughed bitterly. "No. I knew him too. Like Javert, he was an ambitious man; but his scruples were more flexible. In fact, our Inspector Ecrain came out of the affair quite well."


	3. coach to m-sur-m

Madeleine had a hundred questions more, but a burst of rough laughter sounded down the hall and Duval twitched. "I should be at my desk."

"Of course," Madeleine said; "forgive me for keeping you. But can you tell me one last thing? Why is this man now being sent to Montreuil with me?"

"There is nothing left of him, that is why. They've had their sport and he is broken; and no one in the prefecture will dare to challenge them now. As for why Montreuil, in particular: I think I can tell you. I heard the city spoken of a year ago. That was the post they offered him if he'd recant. A comrade of mine was there and heard his answer.” He looked uncomfortable. “The inspector told Gisquet that even if his honor were not at stake, he'd rather be dead than be run out of Paris to work in, well, 'an ass-fuck town in the provinces." Forgive me, sir," he added quickly. "I am merely quoting. I am sure your city is a fine one."

Madeleine smiled grimly. "I see. And so they are sending him to the ass-fuck town he refused before. The joke is on him and me both."

Duval nodded. "His spirit is destroyed, and they are merely disposing of his body. I don't know how, but they've remade him into something less than human. He is a sort of beast now, a dog, usable only for vile acts." From his pocket he brought forth the two gold coins and thrust them out. "Take these back. An officer of the law doesn't take bribes. Inspector Javert - as I knew him - scorned any man who did." 

As they stepped into the hallway together, Madeleine took his leave of the young sergeant. Duval clasped his hand. "Monsieur, I only hope that you will not use him badly. He cannot serve you as an officer, but I beg you to remember that he was once the most honorable of men."

.

With a disquiet mind, Madeleine returned to the room where the officers were still engaged, he assumed, in their shameful game. Through the door he heard another round of harsh laughter. He said a prayer - _My Lord, make of me a better man than I am._

Javert was on his hands and knees, crouching so low that Madeleine's first view was of his spread buttocks. "Lick up the rest," Ecrain was saying. His tone was encouraging, a teacher speaking to a slow pupil. Javert's raw tongue was scouring the tiles around Ecrain's boots; something viscous dripped from his face and hair. "That's good," said Ecrain. "Just like that." He patted Javert's head.

Gisquet looked up. "The esteemed mayor of Montreiul returns to us," he said. "Good! We have concluded our farewell party, and all that remains is the passing of the torch. Ecrain, fetch Javert's belongings, if you would."

From a corner of the room, Ecrain produced a black leather knapsack. Gisquet took it and rifled within. Madeleine heard the clank of metal, but what Gisquet handed him was a band of leather -- a stock, apparently, though broader and stiffer than he had thought a stock to be. Along with a buckle at the rear, it had an iron ring set into the side. "You must put this on him," Gisquet said with a smile, "so he will understand to whom he now belongs."

"Up, inspector," Ecrain said, giving a quick tug at Javert's hair. "Get on your feet for Monsieur."

"Yes, sir." Javert stumbled clumsily to his feet.

Madeleine turned the stock over in his hands. There were letters burned into the inside, but the leather was worn and he struggled to make out the writing.

 _Service Canine de la Prefecture, Paris_

The rich scent of leather filled his nostrils. His hands were damp. The collar was heavy and stiff – as was his cock, where a surge of heat was gathering again. Javert stood with head bowed, neck bared, his hands held out at an odd angle as if he did not know quite what to do with them. The three officers were watching, amusement curling the corners of their lips. The room seemed to pulse, the walls throbbing in and out along with the rush of blood in his ears. The shrill whine of desire grew loud and insistent between his thighs, blotting out his thoughts. He stepped forward. It was easy to place the collar around Javert's neck. His hands knew exactly what to do. Deftly he drew the leather through the buckle, making it firm and tight. Perhaps a little too tight, but that was just as well. A hot hunger clawed at him, driving him forward. 

Yet at the same time he was aware of a different thought, like a small clear voice carrying from across a great distance, cutting through his haze of lust and rising blood: 

_I am damned._

.

Only three other passengers were riding the south-bound coach to the coast. Madeleine ushered Javert into an empty cabin and drew the door-curtain for privacy. The collar was barely visible under the inspector's greatcoat and uniform, but Madeleine's gaze kept returning to it. His mind was replaying the lewd scenes he had just witnessed, and he was cursing his weakness and shifting in his seat as he tried to fight down his erection. 

In Javert's lap was the knapsack. Ecrain had thrust it into his arms before he left, with an admonishment. "Do not neglect your exercises. Don't forget all the lessons I worked so hard to teach you. And guard your possessions carefully on the journey - Monsieur will be wanting to see them when he gets you to your new home." Since they had left the police headquarters, Javert's gaze had remained dull and empty, but he kept a jealous grip on the knapsack as if it held things precious and irreplaceable. He carried nothing else away from Paris.

Madeleine resolved that he would never ask Javert to display what lay within - but he could not help being curious.

"Montreuil-sur-Mer is an interesting town," he said abruptly. "Because it's on the sea, we get a fair mix of colorful people. The police force has been overwhelmed for some time; the men have been working long hours and morale is not as good as I would like. Your arrival will be a great help."

Javert turned to him. For the first time, something of the slack look left his face, and something of the professional man appeared. He drew himself up. "I will be honored, Monsieur le maire. How many men are employed in the force?"

"Perhaps forty," Madeleine told him. "I believe twenty-two men patrol in the day, and some fewer at night. Each man gets his day-off once a week, I think. When we arrive, you can speak to the current commander about specifics."

Javert nodded. "Yes, Monsieur. As you wish. But, if you will allow me to make a suggestion?"

"Of course."

"If you are to have me serve so many, it would be preferable if I might have a brief respite two or three times a day. To do my exercises." He turned his face away, flushing faintly. "So that I can continue to provide pleasure--" He hesitated, and his fingers dug into the knapsack so that the tips went white. "What I mean is, I will be less useful if I let myself become overly-- overly stretched, monsieur." 

Madeleine's horrified embarrassment was matched only by the aggressive whining of his engorged cock. _Javert of Toulon, on his hands and knees while forty men--_ "No; no! You misunderstand. I do not wish you to serve. Not like that. I was thinking, rather, that you might like to--" He cast around for the right words. "To lead. As you used to?"

Javert stared down into his lap. "Monsieur. I am afraid that - well, I have no experience from-- from my earlier days, and M. Ecrain did not see fit to train me in that way. However, I will do my best to be whatever your men want of me. That is my duty. They have only to show me what is considered pleasing."

"What! No, I did not mean--" Madeleine crossed and uncrossed his legs. "What I mean is, there is crime and disorder in my city, more than you might guess from its size. I want to make it a place where townspeople can walk the streets without fear of assault. You are to take over as chief inspector. I will need you to reorganize the police force and put an end to the lawlessness that plagues the docks and the poorer quarters."

Now it was Javert's turn to recoil in shock. "Monsieur," he said, aghast. "I am afraid that you have been badly misled, if that is what you hope from me."

"I do not see why," Madeleine protested. "In fact, at the Prefecture I heard it from one of your colleagues that you have had a long and successful career. Look, Javert - I want to help you. It is not my intention to keep you as, as some sort of--" Even as the words left his lips, his cock pressed its own protests. He angled his legs awkwardly to hide the tent at his crotch. 

Javert flicked his gaze to Madeleine's lap. "Monsieur," he said in a pained voice, "you must allow me to be of use to you." He rose, checked the latch on the cabin door, and adjusted the door-curtain carefully. "It is my duty. It is why M. Gisquet assigned me to your service."

He knelt swiftly, and with skillful fingers opened Madeleine's trousers and pushed them down below his waist. Madeleine's uncaged cock sprang forward, hot and hard, already dripping from the tip.


	4. men who sleep in irons

Madeleine grabbed at Javert, meaning to shove him away or raise him up. His hands clutched at Javert's iron-gray hair. _"Get up!"_ \-- that was what he meant to say -- _"Get up; are you mad?"_ But as warm lips pressed against his bare hip, the words emerged as only an inarticulate cry. He moaned, his head lolling back. Where Javert's mouth touched him, fire bloomed and spread. 

Javert looked up from his knees. The sight of his upturned face nearly overcame Madeleine; he was mortified by his body's surging heat. "Stop!"

"Do not worry," said Javert. "No one will see." He bent his head. His tongue drew along the crease of Madeleine's thigh in a broad wet stroke, while his hand curled to clench the base of Madeleine's cock. He pressed the pads of his fingers into the underside, and Madeleine felt ecstatsy recede a little, like a storm-wild river licking at the lip of its banks. Javert thrust his tongue hard between Madeleine's thighs.

"My God, my God, stop this," groaned Madeleine. But Javert's mouth moved, and his last resistance melted. Gritting his teeth, he watched his length disappear slowly between those fiery lips, and like a rutting animal, he thrust upward. He had not taken pleasure with another since the furtive couplings of Toulon, but those brief releases were nothing compared to this filthy, driving need. This was Javert - _Javert!_ \- who had once lorded power over him. He could imagine this incident taking place behind the mess hall at Toulon, where he - again the unwashed, scab-headed convict, lower than a beast - would grab the hated guard by his uniform front and push him to his knees. This image made him snarl as he wound his hands tighter into Javert's hair. The nearness of his climax drove him to the edge of madness.

"Finish it!” he groaned. “Finish it!"

Javert nodded, mouth still full, and released his hold on the base of Madeleine’s cock and took it even deeper, so Madeleine could feel his cockhead thrust down the opening of Javert's throat. Javert raised one of his big hands and clamped it hard over Madeleine's mouth. Swept beyond restraint, Madeleine bucked wildly and uttered a roar of animal pleasure and abandon. His voice was swallowed up by Javert's broad hand, his seed by Javert's hot mouth. He rode along on stabbing peaks of sensation, wave after glorious wave. As it had done in the outhouse at the Prefecture headquarters, his mind fled its bonds and the hard eternal gaze of the Bishop was forgotten. When at last the pleasure dimmed, he fell back, drained, and nearly sobbed aloud. 

After a while he noticed his hands were aching. He still had Javert by the hair. "By God," he muttered, unclenching his grip. Tufts of silver came away in his palms.

Javert rocked back on his heels and bowed his head. "I hope you found me adequate," he murmured. A streak of come laced his cheek. At the sight of it, Madeleine's perfect calm receded a little. But the exhausted afterglow still warmed him. He was overcome by a strange instinct to raise the man before him, wipe his face and pull his lean, vulnerable body close in an embrace. 

But at the same time, the cold judgment of the Bishop descended, and horror rose in him, and with all his heart he wished he had never taken this journey to Paris. The night was moonless, and the coach was passing through a dark gap between villages where no life was evident along the road. The thought flashed in his mind that he could make Javert disappear. If he hurled the man from the rear running board, he could continue to Montreuil alone; his sins would be left here among the brush and boulders of this nameless place, in this covering darkness. Javert would be erased as Jean Valjean had been erased - so that Madeleine the penitent could live on and strive for his redemption. No one need ever know.

"M. Ecrain taught me. If I please you, it is he who deserves the credit. He was very patient with me." Javert, still on his knees, maneuvered a limp Madeleine back into his trousers, refastened his buttons, straightened his collar - all without raising his eyes to look his master in the face. Madeleine, in a state of horrified paralysis, did not resist. As Javert returned to his seat, he bowed his head and murmured, "Thank you, monsieur. For allowing me to serve."

Madeleine suppressed a shudder and stared fixedly out the window as if he were alone. The other man did not move or speak; he remained as still as a mere object. Gradually his lids drooped and his eyes sank into slits. Only when they had closed completely did Madeleine dare to steal a look at him. And then despair and revulsion choked him and he quickly looked away.

.

Javert was tired. He had given his best to M. Madeleine. He had given his best to Messieurs Gisquet, Chabouillet, and Ecrain earlier as well. It had been a long day. The train was pleasant -- too pleasant, really -- the cabin too warm, the seats too soft. His eyes were heavy. The coach swayed gently as the wheels hummed on. He ordered himself to stay awake...

_Dark. So dark._  
_Cold._  
_I'd fucking kill for a swallow of water._  
_Boots on stone. It's him. He's coming back._ _Today I'll kill him. I'll free myself and wrap these chains around his traitor neck._  
_Good Christ, how long have I been here? Days? Weeks?_  
_Or worse?_

He came to with a shudder. Waking was bad. Every time, it began with a moment that felt like bursting through glass, as if he were shattering his own reflection from the other side. _Where--? How--?_ Terror, that was the feeling - terror, or cowardice by another name - and every time, all he could do was cringe and try to scramble away from the harsh brightness that exposed him. The feeling lasted only a few moments - just until he awoke all the way and remembered who he was and sorted his thoughts into the proper patterns. There now; it was coming back to him. He was Javert: traitor, arrogant, ungrateful, no good. But now improved, thanks to M. Ecrain. He was Javert, the prefecture's assistant for special duties. He had a purpose. He would work hard and please his masters and they would let him be useful. He raised his hand to the collar, snug and stiff at his neck, and stroked the familiar buckle. The action calmed him. There: everything was all right.

.

"Have you been in this part of France before?"

Madeleine, seeing Javert jerk awake, wanted to take command of the situation and steer them both swiftly out of dangerous waters, firmly into the dull, proper relationship that is supposed to exist between a magistrate and a city servant. Even as the words left his lips, however, he could hear how inane they were. He forced himself to face Javert with the imitation of a polite smile. He was, after all, good at pretending things. 

"No, Monsieur." 

They lapsed again into silence.

.

Well past sunset, they debarked. Madeleine led the way to his house; he did not imagine Javert had money for an inn. Javert followed a step behind him, still clutching his knapsack as they passed through the narrow, twisting streets of the old quarter. His housekeeper let them in with an exclamation about the lateness of the hour.

"Good Mme. Voisier, this is Inspector Javert. He will be staying the night. Please make the necessary arrangements." He showed Javert into the sitting room, but the man stood awkwardly and would not take a chair. Madeleine, out of politeness, remained standing as well. He could not think of anything to say, and the silence between them seemed both absurd and sinister. The housekeeper bustled in and out of the kitchen, and soon called the men to their dinner. She had set a place for Javert at the foot of the table, opposite her master, and had prepared a plate of bread and meats for each man. Javert stood stiffly beside his chair.

"Please," Madeleine said as he settled himself at the table. "Sit down, Javert."

Javert returned a baffled, unhappy look. "Monsieur, you are too generous to a man who does not deserve it. I cannot sit down with you."

"What?" Madeleine gave a short laugh, more from nerves than amusement. "But you must sit, or I will not be able to eat either - and I am very hungry."

Javert hesitated. Finally he took up his plate and sat - not in the chair, but on the floor beside it. "This will suffice," he murmured. "I will sit, but not at your table - you will not see me, and may imagine I am not here."

Madeleine protested this strange arrangement, but his arguments were weak and he gave them up quickly. A small, mean part of him was relieved to have Javert out of his sight. Additionally, he was both tired and ravenous. He made short work of the meal and, thanks to some mystery of the mind, Javert was utterly forgotten while he sank his teeth into the housekeeper's fine cooking. Not until he rose from the table with a full belly did his eye fall on his houseguest. He gave a guilty start. Javert was seated on the floor, motionless in the position he had first taken up: back erect, head bowed, and the plate of food untouched before him.

"Javert. Please. You must eat."

"Yes, Monsieur. Are you finished with your meal?"

"Well - yes."

"Then," Javert said, "if you will allow it, I will begin." He remained perfectly still, a study in patience and humility. _My God, his head was bent just like that an hour past, over my lap--_

"Eat!" he snapped.

.

When Javert was done, Madeleine showed him to the spare room. Mme. Voisier had made it up comfortably. Javert, however, sprang back from the doorway. "What is this? I cannot sleep here, Monsieur."

"Of course you can. Where else would you have me put you?"

"I cannot sleep in a bed! I cannot sleep in your home! A shed, a stable; that is where I belong. Monsieur, please. This is not correct."

"Javert. It is only a bed. You will sleep in it tonight. It's what I wish."

Javert touched the collar at his throat. "Please. I do not wish to argue with you. But--" He clenched his hands. "Listen: You don't know what I am. If I sleep on a bed, in your very home, what will keep me from forgetting myself? I have to be careful."

"Well, I do not have a shed or a stable," said Madeleine. "What would you have me do, Javert?" There was real fear, he saw, in the other man's face. He sighed. "Very well. Will you allow a pile of cushions and blankets beside the fireplace?"

Javert reluctantly agreed and Madeleine set about preparing him a pallet of sorts before the fire. Soon the spot was made as comfortable as Madeleine could arrange -- far more comfortable than Javert wanted it, judging by his face. There had been a grim night in Digne, Madeleine remembered, when he had himself been shocked to be shown a bed in a spare room. 

"Tell me this,” he said gently. “Where have you been sleeping in Paris?"

"There is a cellar below the prefecture headquarters," Javert murmured. "M. Ecrain had to keep me chained at first, because I was no better than an animal. M. Ecrain" - his voice cracked - "M. Ecrain had to teach me my lessons over and over. But I improved. I was slow but I learned. And it was months ago that M. Ecrain told me he trusted me to be obedient without the chain. He said I could lie down in my place and sleep, and he would not put the irons on me. That was a great day for me, Monsieur; you can't imagine-- And I swear to you, I never betrayed his trust; nor will I ever betray yours." A kind of pride transformed his features as he said this. 

In Toulon, the prisoners slept in irons. At lights-out, the guards would move between the planks running a long chain through the ankle irons of all the convicts, securing both ends to iron balls set on the floor, so that each row of men was pinned in place. On one cold spring day, the captain of the guards announced that it was Easter, and that all convicts who had kept a clean record for the past month would be allowed to sleep unfettered for the night. Madeleine had been among the chosen. Lying down that night, he'd stretched his legs and moved them side to side with delight. He'd been flooded with gratitude toward the guards and had thought of them - for that one night only - with benevolence. It occurred to him now, as he looked at Javert, that only those men who have been slaves can ever appreciate the sweetness of being unchained.

When Madeleine spoke again, his voice was husky. "I will see you in the morning," he said. "Sleep well, Javert."


	5. prayers of the damned

As he turned to go, Javert spoke up nervously. "Monsieur," he said. "I do not wish to trouble you--"

"It's no trouble. What is it?"

"There is something-- " He flicked his eyes to the black knapsack. He had kept it at his side since they arrived at Madeleine's home, as if he could not bear to be apart from it. Madeleine waited. Javert flushed and mumbled, "You have not yet-- You are supposed to--" He twisted his hands together. "M. Ecrain said--"

Madeleine restrained his impatience. "It's all right, Javert. What did he say?"

"He said-- that you must whip me." Javert spoke in a mumble; his face had reddened and his tone was apologetic. "He said I would need it, the discipline, to keep me-- to save me from--" His eyes darted from side to side, never meeting Madeleine's gaze. "I am sorry, sir. I should not have spoken. But M. Ecrain said-- he said-- well, he was very firm about it, Monsieur." He gave Madeleine a pleading, unhappy look.

No. No, no - this, he would not do. To flog a man; to hold the dreaded instrument and inflict the scorching pain that for nineteen years he himself had suffered. It was unthinkable.

_(Although, if he were honest - hadn't he dreamed of this, too, at Toulon?)_

"M. Ecrain!" The unwanted heat between his thighs made him sharp and irritable. "Oh, yes - your M. Ecrain did wonders for you, didn't he! Listen to me: you must forget him. You're free of him now, and all of them. Forget every monstrous thing Ecrain put in your head."

Javert paled. Then he snapped erect like a sentinel who has been asleep at his post but wakes suddenly to the sound of a rifle-cock. His jaws worked but it was a moment before sound came out. "No," he cried. "M. Ecrain was patient; he was just. He only wanted the best for me, wanted to help me be a better man--" 

"This Ecrain: was he not your partner until a year ago? In fact your junior partner, as I heard it. So why do you elevate him to such high esteem? Why take orders from him?"

"I disgraced myself," said Javert tightly. "Were you not told this? I was a fool and a traitor. M. Ecrain, though, stayed loyal. In spite of my entreaties he remained an honorable man - he separated himself from me and protected Mssrs. Gisquet and Chabouillet while I betrayed them. And so he was promoted above me, and tasked to improve me -- so that I could learn to follow his example. Monsieur, you must not speak against M. Ecrain. I will not listen to slander against him, or you, or any of my betters!"

The passion of his words was such that Madeleine, nonplussed, took a step back. "All right," he muttered. "We will not argue." Javert, however, remained proudly upright, his bearing fierce as a tiger's. Gone was the slump-shouldered man who had shuffled behind Madeleine through the streets. He resembled once more the Javert of old, Javert of Toulon - and Madeleine could not utterly quell the prick of fear under his skin. "My apologies," he said uncertainly. "I shouldn't have spoken so. I don't know the man, after all."

"You must whip me." Javert's eyes were cold and his voice was flat. "I need stern discipline, or the weakness of my nature will overcome me again." He strode to the knapsack, removed an object, and pressed it into Madeleine's hands. Black and smooth and cruel it was -- a lash of the style used at Toulon. Madeleine's hand closed around it.

"Do what you must," Javert said, as his hands went to the buttons of his coat, and he turned his face to the wall. 

.

_The lash fell and the guard screamed. Valjean grinned and wiped his face against his red smock. He stroked the stiff whip-handle with his thumb before raising his arm for another blow. He would never stop, now that the thing was set in motion. There was a taste of satisfaction in this but it was not enough to sate his hunger. Each fall of the lash stoked his craving to strike again. For what he had suffered, his years under the boots of this man and others like him, there could never be justice. Javert's cries were not desperate enough; his blood flowed too thin and not as rich red as Valjean desired; the marks springing out on his flesh were pretty but still too shallow. Valjean raised his arm again and again. His arm throbbed; he wanted to stop, but the rage in him wouldn't allow it and neither would the fiery pulse between his thighs. The lash was the master, and both men were slaves to it._

Madeleine, facing the naked back of Javert, clutched the whip and tried to resist the old bitter song of vengeance. He was a changed man - God’s man now - and he willed his arm to stay at his side and his cock to cease its demands. Only his arm obeyed.

By God, no. He would not do this.

In all his black imaginings it had never been like this: the guard pushing the whip into his hand, baring his back and asking for the blows. The man before him was no longer Javert of Toulon, and Madeleine was no longer Valjean. He would slam the door against the brutish ways of his past. There was nothing of Valjean left in him. He was Madeleine the penitent. 

Still. The memory of those nineteen years was strong in him.  


He hesitated.

Nineteen years. Perhaps a single strike of the whip was permissible. God might grant him that: a fair reward for all his efforts to redeem himself. God, after all, had delivered his old enemy into his hands. His grip tightened on the smooth leather-wrapped handle.

"You are asking me to do this," he said in a low voice. "To strike you. That is what you said."

"Yes, Monsieur." 

Madeleine had not noticed it in Paris, but the man’s thin back was already marked with the unmistakable tattoos of past floggings. Some of the wounds were fresh and barely scabbed over. Others were months old, raised along their sides, ranging from pale pink to angry red. None had yet aged to whiteness. Prisoners in their first year at Toulon had backs like this. Madeleine's own back had once looked similar, he supposed: over twenty years ago, when he was young.

"This is what you want? Truly?"

"Want? No. I do not want it. But I need it. Please, Monsieur. Do what you must."

Madeleine reached out and stroked Javert's back lightly, tracing the young scars with his fingertips. Javert's muscles tensed and shivered. Madeleine felt very calm. This man, his former guard and tormenter, wanted to be struck. He wanted to suffer punishment. And it was right, wasn't it, that he should be punished, for all the misery he had inflicted at Toulon?

"All right," he said. "So be it, then." He adjusted his grip. He told himself that he was ready; that it was right. Still, the lash weighed heavily in his hand. Despite the heat of his desire, he found he could not raise his arm.

Four years of prayer and practiced redemption held him back - but the reawakening of his old bitter fantasies drew him irresistibly on. The muzzled beast had crouched inside him for so long, had waited so patiently. 

"Javert," he said softly. He was beginning to sweat inside his clothes, and he sounded, to himself, strangely desperate. "Tell me. Have you ever flogged a man?"

"Many times, Monsieur." Javert whispered as Madeleine had done. They were two conspirators together.

"How did it feel?" He gripped the handle harder. "Did you enjoy it?"

Javert held his position, hands braced against the wall. "Monsieur, please." A whimper had crept into his voice. "Please, get it over with. I am ready."

 _"Answer me!_ You've used a whip like this. You brought it down on many men. I want to know: did you enjoy it?"

Javert's words were slow in coming. "When I was a prison guard long ago," he murmured at last, "I flogged men often. I would not say I enjoyed it. But it was correct and necessary. I would say it gave me... satisfaction."

"Satisfaction," said Madeleine. He blew out his breath. "Satisfaction. Yes." He raised his arm. The handle curved beautifully into the shape of his hand as if it had been made for him, had been waiting for him all these years.

He let the whip sing through the air.

.

The crack of lash on flesh was solid and true. At the moment it struck, Madeleine's years of careful piety were swept aside. Rage rose in him as black and bitter as it had been the day he'd left Toulon. Javert grunted and quivered, and a hot welt leaped across his fragile skin. Madeleine's cock thickened at the sight of it. He smelled sweat and salt and his own desire -- the smells of Toulon - and brought down the lash again. Again. Again! 

Javert was gasping now as Madeleine brought the whip down. Between blows, he was muttering something against the wall in a low rush of words. Madeleine couldn't make out what he was saying and did not want to know. He fumbled desperately at his trousers, and thrust his left hand down to palm his swollen ache. 

"Turn around," he spat. 

Javert turned, revealing a face rigid with pain, eyes red-rimmed and brimming with water. Madeleine should have been satisfied at this sight, but he was not. Something was lacking in Javert's countenance. He had longed to see humiliation and fear there, but Javert's expression showed only a dumb, stoic endurance, like that of an animal. Madeleine felt a rush of fury.

"On your knees!" Javert dropped like a puppet. Madeleine could not help but recall that Chabouillet had, not long before, given this same command, and that he, Madeleine, had been appalled to hear it. And then his obstinate mind produced once more the words Duval had spoken: _Do not use him badly. Remember he was once the most honorable of men._

But it was too late to stop. He bared his cock and took Javert's mouth, plugging it like a cork stops a bottle. Javert was rendered both mute and ridiculous -- a slave or a clown, his lips spread wide. He did not resist and began to suck wetly. But still, Madeleine felt cheated. Javert's humble submission meant that he could not loose the full force of his rage on his tormenter, could not crush his spirit and violate him as he deserved - as Madeleine had himself been violated every day for nineteen years by this man and others like him. Javert's mute compliance was a trick that robbed Madeleine of his revenge.

His lust dimmed. His cock was only half-hard now. He thrust violently, barely cognizant of Javert's choked moans. It was a long time before his heat finally rose high enough to let him spend with a weak shudder. 

His pounding heart slowed as he pulled out. He was struck by a sudden chill, and disgust washed over him. He kept his eyes away from the ruined man in front of him as he jerked up his trousers. He let the whip clatter to the floor. 

Javert remained on his knees. 

Madeleine strode to his bedroom and tore a blanket from the bed, returning to throw it over Javert's naked form. . "Get up," he snapped. "Pick up your clothes. Get into your room." The thick collar at Javert's neck was not hidden by the blanket; its iron ring winked obscenely in the lamplight. "Wait!" Madeleine unbuckled it roughly and threw it aside. Javert gasped and his hands flew to his throat. 

"Monsieur," he said, turning a shocked gaze up to Madeleine. "What have I done wrong?"

Madeleine could not help seeing the red stripes that curled around the man's flanks. "Get into your room!" he said again. He could hear his own panic. "Go!" 

Javert bowed his head. "Yes, Monsieur. As you wish."

.

Madeleine stayed on his knees late into the night, under the crucifix on his bedroom wall. "I'll make it up to him. I'll set things right. I'll be a better man," he sobbed. "What a wretch am I!" Not until his legs were cramped and his eyes burning did he stagger to his feet. He would have thrown himself down in his bed immediately, but he was surprised to notice a hint of yellow light filtering into the hallway. Unease needled him. Surely Mme. Voisier, having set the dinner dishes in order, was long gone. 

The light was coming from the spare room. The door was open a crack, and a lamp or candle was still lit within. Madeleine could hear the low mutter of Javert's voice, and he recognized the same chanted incantation Javert had been repeating earlier as the whip fell. Aflame with curiosity and fear, Madeleine could not stop himself from drawing closer and pressing an eye against the opening. 

Javert was by the fireplace. He was not resting. Rather, he was on his knees on the hard floor, just as Madeleine had been for the past hours. He was still naked from the waist up, the blanket hanging carelessly from his hunched shoulders. His hands were clenched tightly together in front of him. Madeleine could see his lips moving, and the words came clearer now. "Respect;" he was saying, his voice low and urgent; "obedience; service. Respect; obedience; service." Over and over he said the words, never faltering, the long lines of his body taut with concentration. 

In front of him, laid out on a velvet cushion like a holy relic, the cruel black whip gleamed in the lamplight.


	6. A new beginning

_Footsteps._  


_If the chain were longer I might catch him with my feet when he comes close._  
_Key in his pocket._  
_No good. No room to maneuver. He's bound me well, using the method I taught him myself. Bastard._  


_Wrists getting worse, and this damned fever, and how many days since he brought me water?_  
_How long will I still have strength even to roll to my knees and squat over the bucket?_  
_How long will I have strength to withstand him?_  
_How much longer will I have the strength to care?_

The bright voice rang out through the darkness. "Good morning! It's time for your lesson. But of course, you know that. M. Gisquet asked today how you are progressing. I had to tell him the unfortunate truth." 

"Suck my cock." The words came out hoarse and whispery, though he had meant to shout.

"These things can't be rushed; that's what I told him. Of course, you know that. We've conducted many interrogations together, you and I."

"Get your hands off me, you puddle of piss." 

"Now, don't thrash like that - you'll only hurt yourself again. You won't last much longer, you know." A shuffling sound followed; the voice was closer now. "Soon you'll be begging. Perhaps even the next time I come." 

_Must not give in. Must not._ "Fuck you. Your mother; your sister. Try and touch me, you bastard. Come on. Closer; I'm gonna--"

"Ah. Still arrogant. _Tant pis."_

_Bite down. Don't cry out. No. Not. Not the stick, no--_

.

Javert awoke in a sweat. The dreams; the dreams were still getting to him. He wasn't supposed to have them, and he didn't want them. Yet a man couldn't control himself while he slept. "Looking back just brings pain," M. Ecrain always said. And he was right. Javert tried not to look back, to simply be grateful for all M. Ecrain had given him -- but in his dreams his mind ran amok like a wild dog off its chain. 

"Respect, obedience, service," he muttered. 

Where was he? Oh: in a room where he should not be -- in M. Madeleine's own home, on the floor before the fire. But where was M. Madeleine? The house was quiet. Javert's hands went to his neck, and when he found his own naked skin there he flushed with shame. M. Madeleine did not want him. He did not even know what he'd done wrong. But M. Ecrain would be so disappointed when he learned of it. 

M. Ecrain was far away and no one had given him his orders. What should he do? There was, of course, only one answer. He would wait right here where M. Madeleine had put him. He twisted a corner of the blanket into a thick rope, and wrapped it around his neck. 

There; that was better. He would wait. Someone would arrive eventually to give him his instructions. 

. 

Madeleine left at sunrise for the home of M. and Mme Chorin, three blocks from his own. Mme. Chorin was known to be an early riser, an industrious woman whose lavish breakfasts were legendary among her lodgers. M. Chorin was tall and spare and too soft-hearted to succeed as a landlord. Their most recent rentier had fled in the night, leaving a three-months' debt. Yes, M. Chorin assured him: M. Madeleine's new assistant would be welcome to move in immediately. No, they could not possibly accept the outrageous figure M. Madeleine proposed. It took a long while for the two overgenerous souls to reach an agreement acceptable to both, but in the end it was Madeleine who prevailed. 

He found Javert exactly where he'd left him. Apparently the man had not moved from the spare room, though he had set the blankets and cushions back in order. Madeleine was relieved that he was properly dressed, the lash-marks hidden and the whip nowhere in evidence. They could now pretend, at least outwardly, that the events of the night before had not occurred. "I've arranged your lodgings," he said. "The Chorins are excellent people. I'll take you there now." 

"Yes, monsieur." Javert clutched his knapsack close and made to follow Madeleine. However, at the door he stopped short. 

"What is it?" 

"Monsieur, forgive me for mentioning it, but I cannot go. I have no money." His ears reddened. "I would do quite well in any shed, or an unused corner of a guard-post. You need not trouble yourself over me." 

"Room and board will be deducted from your salary," Madeleine said. "It's a common arrangement in these parts." 

"Then -- you intend to keep me?" Something pitiful and childlike showed in that whiskered face. Javert brought his hand up to his neck and Madeleine felt a stab of irritation. 

"Of course. Did you think otherwise?" He had stepped on the discarded collar early in the morning as he went out. Horror-struck by the object, he had picked it up gingerly and disposed of it in a rubbish-bin some distance from his home. 

Javert ducked his head. "I am grateful, monsieur. But if I am to draw a salary, then you must tell me what my duties are. I cannot accept money I do not earn." 

"Well -- we'll have time to discuss that. You've only just arrived. Come; it's this way." They stepped out into the street, which was beginning to fill with the bright sounds of morning. Javert walked a pace or two behind. Madeleine slowed, even paused to allow him to catch up, but Javert would not come alongside him. It was awkward. His townspeople hailed him as always with friendly greetings, but right away their eyes slid past him to the tall, stooped stranger who shambled at his heels. 

At the Chorins', they mounted the steps together. Javert looked around his new rooms silently but did not move beyond the doorway. "Well?" asked Madeleine. "Does it suit?" He followed Javert's gaze, and added with a touch of impatience, "Yes, there is a bed -- but I am sure Mme. Chorin will not force you to enjoy it." 

"It is too fine for me," Javert murmured. "It reminds me of how I used to live, in the old days. And even if you have me serve your entire police force every day, I will not be worthy of a salary to cover it." 

His calm recitation of these flaws sparked a sudden fury in Madeleine. _Try to make it up to a man, and this is the thanks he gives?_ "It's what there is," he said. "You'll live here. You may hate it if you wish." 

Javert's face closed up, and he began a stammering apology. Madeleine cut him off. "Mme. Chorin will be up with your breakfast, I am sure. I'll return tonight. We can talk about your duties then." He heeled about and left. Would that he could wash his hands of this entire odious situation! As he descended the stairs, however, and even after he had gone out across the street and past the café on he first corner and then the boulangerie on the second -- even when he was mounting the steps of his own home -- he could still feel Javert's mute, hungry gaze following after him. 

. 

Throughout the day, Madeleine filled every idle moment with fevered prayers, keeping his mind from the images of Javert's mouth, Javert's bare red-slashed back, Javert on his knees. When evening came and Mme. Voisier cleared away the dinner plates, he buttoned his greatcoat against the November chill and went out to face his duty. Though he would prefer never to see the man again, it would be a great evil to simply maroon him at the Chorins', penniless and half-mad. Most likely Javert had not moved from the doorway where Madeleine had left him - unless it was to stand watch at the window for Madeleine's return. 

Javert let him in almost before he even raised his hand to knock, his eyes feasting on his employer's face with a mixture of devotion and fear. He almost babbled. "Please sit down, Monsieur le maire. Forgive me, I have nothing to offer you. I am not prepared; it has been so long since I lived--" He indicated the room with a vague, uncertain wave. He was a little disheveled, his whiskers untrimmed. The effort at hospitality seemed pitiable and out of place. 

"Think nothing of it. I am not thirsty." As he took a chair, Javert's dark liquid eyes followed him. "We should settle things," he said abruptly. "Your duties. Your salary." 

"I am yours." Javert bowed his head. Again he touched his neck, and unhappiness flickered briefly across his features. 

"Yes. Well. I understood from Paris that you were to be, that you were to police the town as chief inspector. But you have said you will not do this." 

"I have said I _cannot,_ monsieur. There is a difference. It is work I am no longer fit for." He started. "Forgive me; I have forgotten to take your coat!" 

Madeleine, who felt a renewed wave of sickness mixed with arousal at Javert's declaration _I am yours,_ said he would rather keep his coat on. He had other business, he explained; he could not stay long. "And, will not or cannot, it makes no difference. But Javert, as for how you will earn your salary, we must have an understanding from the first: The work you have been doing in Paris, for M. Gisquet; that is not what you will do here in Montreuil." There; he had got the sentence out. He would stand firm on this point, and the matter would be settled forever. 

Javert's broad nostrils flared, as if he were catching a scent. Madeleine was aware of the damp patches forming under his arms and between his thighs. He was glad he'd kept the coat on. But Javert's eyes darted toward his lap, as if he suspected what was concealed there. "I can be useful," he mumbled. "M. Ecrain has told me you are unmarried. I can serve you, in any way you want." 

"No," Madeleine said weakly. He drew the coat tight around himself. "We won't do this. No more." He fixed his mind on God, on hell, on the angelic face of the bishop as he had last seen him. _I have bought your soul for God._ "No." 

"Truly monsieur. I can be whatever you want. M. Gisquet, he was a hard man and he liked to hurt me. It pleased him; it was his right; and I didn't mind. M. Chabouillet had other tastes and I was glad to serve him too. And M. Ecrain--" 

But here Javert's voice cracked and he jerked his head away. The corner of his left eye twitched, and something raw and broken appeared in his face. 

He should not ask. But-- "And M. Ecrain?" he prompted. 

Javert remained silent. 

"Tell me. Tell me about him." Javert was almost trembling. His calm equanimity had shattered. 

"He-- enjoyed something else. Please do not make me say it, monsieur." 

Madeleine nodded. "All right. Forgive me for asking." He did not know what else to say, so he rose and began to pace. Javert's eyes followed him in a watchful, hopeful way, as a dog watches its master. Madeleine was sorry now that he had kept his coat on, for the room seemed no longer chilly but stifling and airless.

"You'll give me work, then?" Javert said suddenly, twisting his hands before him. 

"Yes. Certainly. Soon. And now -- good evening." Javert leaped up and bowed. Madeleine, not looking back, fled into the darkness. 


	7. items that can draw blood

Those hungry eyes followed Madeleine again the next evening, as he stepped past Javert into his quarters and laid a package down beside the lamp table. "A few things for you," he said gruffly. "Open it."

Javert made no move toward the package.

"A suit," Madeleine said. "Not new, I'm afraid. I asked Mme. Voisier to alter one of my own. She guessed at your measurements. She has a good eye." He added, "It is probably better not to wear your uniform in the streets. As you're not quite working with the police-- That is, it would cause confusion."

He had been thinking about this. His first idea had been to take Javert around to the station-house and introduce him as a new addition to the force. Even if the man were not suited for patrolling, there must be desk-work he could do. But on reflection, Madeleine suspected the officers would not welcome this bizarre creature into their ranks. At Toulon, convicts smelled out weaklings the moment they arrived, and Madeleine harbored a dark notion that convicts and men of the law were similar in their worst attributes: they hunted in packs, lusted for power, and had to be restrained from tormenting the weak for sport. He did not trust that Javert would survive long in such company.

Javert continued to stare at the package without moving, until Madeleine, suppressing his impatience, finally ripped open the paper himself. "See here. It is good cloth. Do you like it?"

"Monsieur, this is not right. I cannot wear your clothes."

"It's nothing, Javert. I insist you take it."

Javert said nothing for a long moment. Then he looked up and faced Madeleine with a stony gaze. "You mean to hold me here and give me gifts, like-- like a petted lapdog kept at the city's expense. Monsieur, please." He was breathing hard as if in pain. "I could not bear it."

"For God's sake, Javert. Then what is it you want?"

"To serve you! To do my duty. And to have your-- your guidance, Monsieur. To keep me on the righteous path." He picked at the sleeve of his uniform. "It pains me to have to ask for anything. I don’t mean to burden you. Forgive me." As he toyed with his cuff, his sleeve rode up. Madeleine got a glimpse of the bare flesh below.

He seized Javert's arm. Frowning, he pushed back the cloth. A band of unnatural, shiny pink ran around the wrist. He had not noticed it before. "These scars," he said. "Javert. Were you--?" He could not say the words. 

Javert did not pull away He was quite calm. "Yes. For a long time I had to be manacled. But, I am better now."

 _Manacled._ Madeleine's past reared up before him. For nineteen years he had woken and slept to the clank of metal, the rattle of keys and the fatal knell of locks sliding home. Even now, every day when he dressed, he pulled down his own cuffs and looked away so as not to see his own scars, so thick they seemed to go to the bone. He felt ill and cold. "How long did you wear them, Javert?" 

"I cannot say, monsieur. It was very dark. But I have brought all the irons, in case you want to use them again. M. Ecrain thought it a good idea." He nodded toward the knapsack. Madeleine had not noticed it - but there it sat on the bed against the far wall. It was squat and menacing, and suddenly Madeleine could see that its sides bulged grotesquely, straining to enclose whatever lumpen, monstrous things lay within. "Let me show you," said Javert. "You will want to see." He fetched the bag. Madeleine's skin crawled as he set it down between them with a thud - a sound as final as a closing door. Javert began to unknot the laces. Madeleine stared, petrified. Soon the knapsack's dark maw gaped open. Javert slid the whole of his bare hand into the thing, and then his bare scarred wrist. He allowed the bag to swallow him halfway to the elbow as he reached down its black throat. 

"No!" Madeleine burst out.

Javert froze and looked at him in astonishment.

"Don't! Don't open it. Leave it alone. Give it to me, Javert; let me get rid of it for you. Those things, you won't wear them here. I swear it." He knew what was in the bag, could describe it exactly. Within was the clank of chains, the moans of men in torment, and the acrid smells of rust and salt. Like a hand plunging out of the grave to grip his ankle, like a skeletal rider on a phantom horse pounding at his heels, Toulon had come for him. It had hunted him for four years and now Javert had brought it to his door. "Give it to me! Now! Give it to me, Javert!" He reached out to seize the sack, though his stomach convulsed at the thought of touching it. 

"Monsieur le maire!" Javert snatched up the knapsack and, leaping back, hugged it tight to his chest. His eyes were huge. "Please, no. Don't take it from me. I need it."

"Give it here. You don't need that; no man needs that--"

A whimper escaped Javert as he held it tighter. "Please, monsieur. Please."

Nausea swept over Madeleine. The bag seemed now a living thing, crawled out of the sea at Toulon, slithering on sucking tentacles, seeking purchase on the land. And it had found purchase, in Javert -- whose face was as white now as his knuckles, whose fingers dug into the leather sack as if all earthly treasures lay within. "Please."

After a moment Madeleine regained control of his emotions. "All right, Javert." He withdrew his hand. He wouldn't fight the man. "You'll keep it. All right."

"Don't take it."

"All right. It's yours." 

Shakily, Javert retied the laces in the front, and sat again. He still clutched the bag in his lap, but he seemed calmer. "Forgive me, Monsieur. Thank you." He passed a hand through his hair, and for a short while, neither man spoke.

Finally Madeleine said, in a quiet voice, "If you want to serve me, it won't be in chains or on your knees. Do you understand? There must be other work you can do."

"No, monsieur." Javert shook his head fiercely. "There is none."

"You were an inspector on the streets of Paris--"

"I cannot do that; I cannot be trusted with responsibility; I have told you so!"

Madeleine's anger flared again; by God, the man was obstinate! "Enough! All right! We won't argue. But you will accept these clothes, because I command it." There was steel in his tone, and Javert immediately dropped his head. "Yes, monsieur," he murmured. Madeleine felt triumphant and ashamed.

A small item was still nested in the torn paper. Madeleine pushed it toward Javert. It was a straight blade and a pair of small scissors: a men's grooming kit. Javert's whiskers had been suffering since they left Paris and now, along with his wolfish features and the dim doggish glint in his eyes, his unkempt appearance suggested that the animal in him was gaining ascendancy over the man he had once been. Madeleine did not wish to be reminded that degradation turned men into beasts. He had stopped at the barber's earlier that day. 

"For me?" Javert asked.

"Of course. And I'll hear no argument."

Javert reached out for the straight blade, his hand moving slowly towards it as if drawn by an unseen thread. Raising it, he rolled it between his thumb and fingers so it caught the lampglow and threw a sudden crescent-flare of light into Madeleine's eyes. Then he laid the edge against his palm. In one quick hard movement, he thrust down, and Madeleine cried out. 

Blood welled instantly, and flesh gaped open on both sides of the blade. Javert stared at his palm, his expression unchanged. "Sharp," he muttered. "M. Ecrain would not have trusted me with such a thing." He turned his hand over and let glistening red teardrops fall to the floor. For a minute, the _tock tock_ of blood-drops against wood kept steady time in the silent room, and both men watched in fascination.

Then Javert squeezed his injured hand into a fist. "Thank you, Monsieur. You should not have brought these things -- but if it is your command, then I cannot refuse them."

Madeleine tried to ignore the fresh blood oozing between Javert's fingers. "There is something else. One final thing." He stood and took something from his pocket. He put it on the lamp-table beside the clothes. It was a soft wallet. The edges of a few ten-franc notes were visible, and he colored slightly as he faced Javert. "Not a gift. Merely an advance on your salary."

A snort escaped Javert. "My salary? Payment for work you will not let me do!" Instantly he gasped fearfully and looked down. "I apologize, Monsieur. I am sorry."

"You'll have work! I have already promised that." He felt oppressed. He had gone to Paris to obtain a chief inspector, not a risen nightmare from his past, not a broken man who needed saving. Javert was like a monstrous stone tied round his neck: one more burden to stagger under along the road to salvation. "Meanwhile -- go into the town. Buy what you need. Become familiar with the city streets. You're not a prisoner here."

"Perhaps--" Javert began. His tone was wheedling and uncertain. "Perhaps there is a place in the mairie where I could stay." Madeleine thought of the street dogs who stayed near the café, sometimes crawling on their bellies to the tables, whimpering for a crust of bread. "The cellar, or an unused room. I would be close to you, in case you-- in case you needed anything."

"No! That is simply not possible." He rose and backed away, unable to tolerate another moment in this room. "Go out; explore the city, and--" he waved, indicating the clothes and the shaving tools "--take care of yourself, Javert. If the clothes aren't right, Mme. Chorin is said to do fine sewing." It was the black knapsack that repelled him, so he told himself; it was the objects within that filled him with heartsick loathing. By thinking of the knapsack he kept himself from dwelling on Javert: Javert, a man with scars on his wrists so like his own, who clung to his own chains.

.

After M. le maire was gone, Javert stood for a while beside the lamp-table. The room was big and empty. He did not like it. It was hard here, hard on his nerves. He did not like being alone for hours: no duties, no lessons, no master close by to help him order his thoughts. Idleness afforded him too much time to think, and he did not want to think. It confused him. M. Ecrain had instructed against it. But he could not stop himself from thinking. He thought about M. Madeleine. M. Madeleine was a kind man, a man who believed kindness a virtue. But M. Madeleine did not understand. Kindness was an open door to temptation. Already, Javert could feel his old bad ways creeping back. Sedition was taking root again inside him. Even now: he should not be having these critical thoughts of a superior. It was not M. Madeleine's fault he was kind.

But it was too easy to be kind. The hard thing - the duty of a good master - was to be just. 

He hefted the leather knapsack. Its weight comforted him and he stroked its cool black flanks. M. Madeleine had tried to take it from him. That was something else M. Madeleine didn't understand: he thought what was in the bag was bad. This was nonsense. What was in the bag was good, was important; it was, in fact, the most important thing. What was in the bag was Justice. Javert was very sure of this. It must be Justice, because if it were not, then nothing would be right. He would not be able to make sense of things. And he would not be able to go on. 

He put his hand in, deep, into the knapsack. The whip jumped into his palm. The feel of the cold, smooth wood reassured him. It carried the imprint of M. Madeleine's own hand, and M. Ecrain's before him. Still, he found himself breaking into a sweat as he began to strip off his clothes.


	8. in a hidden gap

Madeleine lay in bed, thinking about the narrow divide between men who lived in the sight of God, and those who lived like beasts, laboring in darkness and never raising their eyes or having hope of anything better. Toulon had taught him how easily men lost what made them human. Society was brutal to those who fell on the wrong side of it, and he pitied Javert for what he had become. But despite this, he still feared and hated him. 

The wheel had turned. The master had become beast and the beast had been raised up by God's grace and now was master. But Madeleine could not lie to himself. When he'd raised the whip against Javert, he'd seen his soul reflected in the gloss of the oiled leather handle. He was unredeemed. The beast still raged in him, held back by chains, froth streaming from its jaws, desperate to break free. 

Wearily he got up and, knees groaning, sank down beneath the crucifix.

.

.

Javert scraped the blade against his cheek. It felt unfamiliar in his hand, though he had used one daily since he was fifteen. Shaving had been a rule M. Lemois imposed on him in the Boys' Home, and by fifteen Javert followed rules without question. M. Lemois' voice rang cold and clear in his memory: _All the rules, my boy, all of them! The ones you like, the ones you hate, the stupid ones you don’t understand. A boy like you can’t afford to make mistakes. You remember what I showed you. Don't you ever forget.”_

Javert never forgot. The thing M. Lemois had shown him three years earlier, when they rode together in the carriage, still gave him nightmares at fifteen. Yet it had saved him. He had been a savage, destined to end like his father, until the rough-spoken orphanage director had taken an interest in him. A warmth spread through him as he thought of M. Lemois, who had believed in him and turned him into something better. 

He caught himself. He was not supposed to look back. M. Lemois belonged to his old life. M. Ecrain was his only teacher now.

His back burned, and blood was seeping down it in a slow trickle. The whip had focused his mind in the way he needed, driving off his seditious thoughts. Those thoughts had not receded very far, though. He would have to be vigilant for their return. 

He slid the blade lower, over his jawline and then into the hollow at the side of his throat. Peering into the glass, he could see his pulse bobbing there. It was a fragile thing, a man’s throat: a soft place where life exposed itself so near the surface. Experimentally, he pushed the blade into his skin. Just a little cut; that would do no harm. He had cut the flesh of his palm and it had been quite easy. Perhaps he would cut his throat as well. Someday. Not today, of course. Maybe tomorrow; he didn’t know. But it was reassuring to see how easy it would be.

His whiskers were in order. His duties, however, were not yet done. _Go out and learn the streets of the town,_ M. Madeleine had commanded. He did not want to do this, but he must obey his master's order. He looked to the window. It was very late now – he had been standing before the glass with the blade in his hand for a long while – and the streets looked empty. That was good. He must do as the mayor bid him, but he would do it in the dark, late at night, like this. There would be no eyes at this hour. That would be best. 

The new suit, M. Madeleine’s suit, frightened him. Gingerly he reached out and touched a shirtsleeve. The clothes were a gentleman's clothes and he did not deserve them. M. Ecrain might be angry. But did he have any choice in this? M. le maire had commanded him to wear them.

It took him a long time to get dressed.

Finally he stood at the door and considered opening it. Something was holding him back. Under his shirt collar, he felt a chill on his bare skin. He took off M. le maire’s black cravat, which was too fine for him anyway. It was long enough to go three times around his neck. He wrapped it snugly. There was still enough left free for a staunch knot. There. That was better. Now he was ready.

The street was, as he had hoped, quite empty; only a distant clatter of hoofbeats broke the silence. He pressed himself close to the wall of the Chorin’s house and sidled along it. It was slow going but eventually he reached the end. The next house along was also brick. The gap between the two homes was less than a meter, and Javert squeezed into it and pulled himself deep enough within that he was safe from the revealing glow of the streetlamps. It was a tight fit. Brick walls, cold and immovable, scraped at his sleeves from both sides. He liked the confinement of a small space; his arms and legs were wedged securely and that was familiar. Best of all, he was out of easy sight should anyone pass by, but he could still see the street – part of it anyway - as M. Madeleine wished. 

With some effort, he was able to bring one hand up to touch his collar. Then he settled himself, eyes alert, and began his watch.


	9. brothers

Javert kept watch through the night. A stiff wind gusted, shaking the windows on the street, but the walls to both sides shielded him and M. Madeleine’s coat was warm. The street was still. He studied the sounds that punctuated the passing hours. From a distant house he could hear the noise of revelry, the laughter of men and women together, and the joyous strains of a violin playing a gypsy melody. Closer by, a man and woman in an upstairs room were arguing about money. _I gave it to the Church, I swear it, Pierre!_ Then, _Traitor bitch, you gave it to the water-carrier. You still have an itch for him, don’t you!_ Javert grimaced. Dreary domestic arguments were a fixture of the Paris street, and he'd spent much of his early career keeping the peace and pulling brawling couples apart. The two caterwaulers kept at it for an hour. Then came a fearful shout, a crash of splintering wood, choked sobs. A door banged and its echoes resounded through the dark. Soon after, there was only silence.

In the early hours of morning a girl in servant’s dress trotted by his hidden place. She had a saucy, loose-jointed walk, skin cool and fresh as milk, and she was smiling to herself. She wore a red kerchief pushed back far enough to reveal waves of dark hair springing from her forehead. Her approach made him nervous. He had, throughout the night, been rehearsing his defense should he be caught here and accused of disobedience or desertion: “But I am here on M. Madeleine’s orders. I have permission!” His heart quickened as she neared, but she did not look his way. She passed so close he could have touched her coat. As she disappeared out of his line of sight he gave a lean grin, unseen, into the darkness. 

He knew morning was close when a water-carrier rattled by on an ancient wagon, laying the whip into his lean gray mare. The rough cobbles of the street shook the wagon so the barrels jounced against each other. The sky was not yet lightening but he could feel the town coming to life all around him. A baby started crying. A scent of baking bread wafted down to him. Up the street a woman came out of her house, looked around, and in a rousing voice began summoning her children and cursing them for their laziness. In the darkness above him a window opened; an instant later he heard a bucketful of slosh hit the ground and the smell of ordure assaulted his nostrils.

He crept out, muscles stiff, and limped painfully to the Chorin’s side door. It was hard, making it up the stairs to his room. He felt a surge of relief when he got the door latched behind him. He did not even remove his coat, but fell gratefully onto his blanket on the floor and pulled it close around him. He was pleased with himself: he had obeyed M. le maire and, he thought, had done well. It had been easier than expected. He sighed deeply. Almost instantly he was asleep.  
.

_Cold._  
_So dry. Mouth stuffed with paper. Where--?_  
_Who--?_  
_Ink on coal. What is it? Something coming. Coming for me._  
_All right. It can have me. It can do what it wants._  
_Currents. Currents out to sea. Drifting. Toulon, is it?_

_Soft._  
_Wet._

_Wet?_

“Drink. It’s all right. Water.” 

_Water. Water? It burns, though. Burns like eau-de-vie._

“Good. You must have more.” 

"Who--?"  
_Doesn't matter who. Don't ask. He has brought me water. I am saved._

"Go slow. Cold, aren't you. You'd like a blanket.” 

_A blanket. Yes._

“There you go. Easy. You’re all right.” 

_Sinking. Seas over my head. Current's got me._  
_You're still here? But are you real? Am I no longer alone here?_  
"Please-- please-- Don't go--" 

"No, no. I won't go.”

_Never go. Never leave me._

“Another blanket? There. Better, isn't it?” 

"Monsieur. You come from God.” 

“Now, now."

_That voice. Familiar. But-- no--_ "Ecrain--" 

"Who but? Time for your lesson. I am sorry. But of course you understand." 

_Lesson. Lesson? Yes. I understand. Anything for you, monsieur. I will study. I will make good marks._

_No--_  
_No--_  
_No--_

.

His own cry jarred him out of sleep. Through the windows came a warm gold light with a western slant. He struggled out of the thin blanket. It had been the poorest one in the pile Mme. Chorin had offered: the only one suitable for a man like him. 

He ached, and the dreams had again left him off-balance, but in spite of that he felt good. He had spent the night invisible, sheltered by darkness and the concealing brick walls - had escaped his body entirely and become nothing but eyes and ears inside a coat. It was a pleasure to be out keeping watch with no one knowing. The one moment of danger when the girl had passed so near had roused him to vibrant energy. He was also gladdened to have slept the day away. He would not have many hours of restless pacing today as he waited for M. Madeleine and tried not to think wrong thoughts. M. Madeleine would come soon. Then he would go out again to his secret place and keep the watch for another night. Perhaps he could even go a little farther and watch a different section of the street. M. Madeleine would be pleased.

He was very hungry. Outside his door, he found the breakfast that Mme. Chorin had left for him hours before. The bread had gone stale but he ripped it in half and wolfed it down. Grabbing the tankard of water, he drained it so greedily that much of it spilled down the sides of his mouth and wet his coat. He devoured the eggs next, puncturing the yolks with his back teeth and tossing his head back with each gulp. 

.

Madeleine was out all day about his affairs. He returned in the evening and was greeted by Mme. Voisier. “There’s a fine duck at the butcher’s with a good fat breast, and not too dear," she told him. "You cook a duck right, a good sauce and just the right fire, it’s a rare treat. There’s a sauce I learned from my grandmamma that you would love. My Robert, he used to let me cook a duck every once a year, on Easter. Won’t you let me get it for you? You would love it, Monsieur. Just once.” He laughed and waved her off. He was accustomed to this line of attack -- Mme. Voisier often remonstrated with him about the luxuries he deserved but did not buy himself, the honors he turned down, the fashions that passed him by, the fine gentlemen whose society he declined. “Suit yourself,” she said sourly. “Always the same with you, monsieur. A good cook likes to show off a little, sometimes.”

He ate alone at his simple table. The house lay submerged in silence that struck him as more ponderous than peaceful. It had been a tiring day like all the others. At his factory he had reviewed the record-books for hours. He had given thought to the troubling problem of some workers, the sick and injured, who were unable to earn and were falling behind on their rents. It was a quandary. Of course one could simply pay the sick whether they worked or no; that was easy enough, and was the proper action towards the honest ones who had true infirmities. But to establish such a policy would tempt certain others into laziness and deceit. Bouts of 'sickness' would increase. This would burden those souls who were both healthy and honest, and on whose shoulders the work would then devolve. He had thought and worried about all this, but he had not yet made a decision. 

At the mairie he had been patient and good-humored through several dull and lengthy meetings with town dignitaries. Then, because today was Wednesday, he had held his public hours all afternoon. It struck him unhappily, and not for the first time, that Montreuil’s townsfolk generally seemed to enjoy strife and spectacle. Where none existed they were inventive in creating it.

Still on his mind was the last case of the day, brought as the gawkers were clearing out. The grizzled cobbler from the Rue Vert approached his desk diffidently. There was a problem with his young daughter. She had been approached on the road to school by Guillaume the road-mender when no one was about. It had been two weeks since the incident and she still refused to leave the house. His wife did not want to report the matter - her opinion was that they should keep the girl at home, and the less said the better. However, the child was only ten, a bright little thing, and the cobbler had hope she would continue with her schooling for at least another year. Could the road-mender be sent away so the girl would leave the house again? Madeleine dictated a letter to the police directing them to investigate. The matter was especially bad because the road-mender was a widower, the sole support of his three children. If he were imprisoned, the children would have no other family to go to.

Madeleine had done his best, had done his duty, and he hoped it was enough. The journey of atonement that he had set for himself on the road out of Digne was a long one. Sometimes it was hard to know if he was following in the Bishop's footsteps properly. He did not always feel he was getting closer to God. It had been a long day and he was tired. 

Mme. Voisier seemed in an ill humor as she set the dishes down. “A couple of your ragamuffins came by this afternoon," she sniffed. "On the way to Paris, they said. I told them to return later, and now I see they’re out in the dooryard, skulking and smirking and hoping you’ll be free with your silver coin.” She gave him an aggrieved look. He understood her meaning: silver was better spent on duck for dinner than on ragged children. 

“Tell them to wait; I’ll be out directly I finish eating."

His spirit lightened a little at her news. ‘Ragamuffins’ was Mme. Voisier’s word for the Savoyard boys who often came through Montreuil and sought out the mayor, as he was known to have a generous heart for them. Perhaps these two would be able to give him the news he sought. He still thought every day of a shameful debt he had accrued outside of Digne, and after all these years he still maintained a slender thread of hope each time a new boy came to town. 

He found the children chasing each other up and down the lane, shrieking and hurling pebbles. They trotted over when they saw him. The taller one tried to neaten the smaller’s clothes, which were soiled and in wild disarray. They were about twelve and resembled each other strongly, both with the same impishness about the mouth and the stocky, handsome look common in the mountains. He pulled out his purse and smiled at them.

“Brothers, are you?” he asked. 

“Yes, sir,” the younger one piped up. “I’m Gaston and this is Jean. My brother.”

“I’m the older,” said Jean, pressing a stealthy elbow into Gaston’s ribs. Gaston grinned. They both had red, chapped cheeks and tattered shoes. A crumpled blue handkerchief poked jauntily out of Jean’s pocket.

“On your way to Paris, are you? It’s a hard time to be traveling. Who will be meeting you, when you get there? Will you have a place to stay?”

“Aw, we’ve got cousins,” said Gaston. “And _Jean_ here is too dainty for chimney-work. So he’s going into service in one of the fancy families.”

“Shut up,” hissed Jean. His elbow made another jab, stronger this time. Gaston was beginning to crumble into giggles.

“I wonder,” said Madeleine. “There’s a boy named Petit-Gervais. A Savoyard I met four years ago near Digne. He’d be about fifteen now. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”

“Never,” Gaston said carelessly. He turned to Jean, who shrugged and shook his head so shaggy curls tumbled over his eyes. He peered through them like a curious pup, giving Madeleine a look of good-natured appraisal.

“Ah. Well. In Paris, perhaps you’ll meet him someday; anything is possible. If you ever do, you'll tell him to come to Montreuil-sur-Mer and find me, will you? Don’t forget. Good lads.” He opened his purse. Disappointment, old and familiar, drenched him like a dunk in an icy river. He must keep trying; he must not give in to despair. There might be another boy along soon who would have some news. Maybe tomorrow, even. Though the chance diminished as winter settled in. 

“You’ll remember that, won’t you, _Jean?_ ” Gaston winked. “Jean here has a good memory.” Then he burst out laughing. The older boy punched him hard in the stomach, making him yelp and hiccup. “Aw, come on," he said. "This one's a good sort. We can tell him. Go on, why doncha. Tell him your name.”

Jean rolled his eyes and shrugged, looking thoroughly disgusted for a moment. Then he grinned too, showing a dimple on the left cheek that was the twin of his small brother's. He tipped up his head and tossed the curls out of his eyes and said, “All right, then: I'll tell you. I’m called Lucie, really. It’s a good trick, isn’t it? No one’s guessed me yet, and we’ve been a month traveling now.”

Madeleine stared. Then he laughed, too. Yes, he could see it, now that he knew to look for it. The child’s nose was a shade too delicate for a boy and her jaw curved gently, where Gaston's was square and stolid. “Lucie,” he repeated, amused. “Brother and sister?” They both nodded vigorously and chortled, squeezing each other’s hands.

“It was ma’s idea,” Lucie said. “To keep us safe on the road while we watch out for each other. I really am the older.”

“But I’m in charge because I’m the man,” said Gaston proudly. “Oww!” Lucie had knocked him in the stomach again, a solid belt. Madeleine remembered: his own sister could hit like that. It was the milking that gave country girls good fists.

He poured out the silver into their eager palms. Something about the pair - their high spirits and rough country faces, or was it the way they stood shoulder to shoulder against the gusting wind? - made him want to cry. He thought of summer evenings in Faverolles: the smell of smoke and the hum of insects under the moon. “Come in,” he said impulsively. “Stay the night in my kitchen. There’s hot food and a fire. My housekeeper will send you off with a good breakfast in the morning.”

The two children looked at each other for a moment; agreement flashed between them. When they turned back to him it was Lucie who answered. “Naw,” she said. “We’re moving on. But thank you, M’sieur. May God bless you.” She executed something like a curtsey and grabbed her brother's hand again. Then, just like that, they were gone – dashing down the road with their fists closed tight around the coins he'd given them. Their laughter seemed to linger behind them like specks of silver, bright against evening's falling gloom. 

He went in and sat in his small library and chose a book. Books were friends: faithful and undemanding, they provided solace during his empty evenings and he enjoyed them. But tonight the house seemed especially quiet, and a terrible cold fatigue had crept into him so that all he wanted to do was lie down in the dark and let sleep erase his thoughts. He tried to resist the leaden pull of his dull mood, but after only a page he gave up. He put the book back on its shelf. Then he snuffed the lamp and dragged himself to bed.


	10. men alone

Javert shaved again in anticipation of M. Madeleine’s visit that evening. He brushed his suit and noted with distress the dirt it had collected during the previous night. He considered asking Mme. Chorin to launder it for him, but that would require seeking her out and speaking to her – things he shrank from – and paying her with M. Madeleine's money. He decided to wear the suit, marked or no; it was the least abhorrent option in front of him. 

Mme. Chorin brought up his dinner, putting the basket in his hands with a smile and a brief word of good wishes. To his relief, she left immediately without trying to draw him into conversation. She had tried to engage him during their previous encounters and he had stammered foolishly and found it hard to answer her. Now, evidently, she had given up the effort. He could not look directly at her while she greeted him, but after she turned to descend the stairs he studied her until she disappeared below the landing. She was a respectable woman, efficient, orderly and quiet. He appreciated that she did not stare.

M. Madeleine did not appear. It was understandable; he was an important man. Still, the emptiness of the evening began to engulf Javert's spirit. He felt himself to be trapped on a barren plain that was really no more than a cell without walls, on a vast expanse of lonely perdition without a tree or tower to break the endless terrain. He began to pace to and fro before the fireplace. He untied and retied the cravat M. Madeleine had given him. Knotted at his neck and wrapped thrice around, it made a serviceable collar, though not heavy and binding like the leather one M. Ecrain had awarded him. That one was gone. M. Madeleine had found him unworthy of it. The last smear of sunset darkened over the sea, and still he paced, and waited. Beyond his window he could see the streetlamps lit now, burning above the deserted square. The town descended into quiet. M. Madeleine did not come. 

Finally he went out. In the darkness, he pushed himself into the same gap he had found the night before. The absence of M. Madeleine left him uneasy in his mind; he did not know what it meant. Of course M. Madeleine was a busy and important man. Anything might have detained him. Javert tried to suppress his anxiety but it raked him like a spur, driving him into restless action. He pushed his head out of his hiding place to get a full view of the street. There was no one about. Sidling out, he slipped along the length of the next house to the Chorins', and then the next. He darted quick looks about him, noting the harness shop at the corner. The unlit recess beside it would appeal to purse-snatchers as a hideout. The loping shadow of a dog flowed over the cobbles across the street like his double. It, too, kept stealthily against the walls, matching him, covering ground. 

The fascinations of the night gradually took his mind off M. Madeleine’s neglect. He discovered that narrow gaps lay between nearly all the buildings, and this gave him confidence to explore as far as the nearest street-corner. From that vantage point he saw three men approaching. The two on the wings, both solid-built and wearing sturdy seamen's clothes, were supporting the tall one in the middle who had his arms slung limply over their shoulders. All three were reeling unsteadily. He had no trouble slipping out of sight well before they reached him, and they passed unaware that two sharp eyes were peering out at them. After they lurched by, he crept along behind them for a short distance for sport. He enjoyed their Marseilles patois. He had been used to hearing it on the streets of Paris, for there had been trouble for some years now with Marseilles gangs trying to get a foothold there. They profited by smuggling on the coast, and hoped to extend their reach into the heart of the capital, so that they could control both ends of the illegal trade in furs, tobacco, and other goods taxed by the crown.

The men's obvious drunkenness and weaving gait gave him a sense of invulnerability. However, when one of them dropped a coin and reeled back around to find it, he froze in shock and cursed his overconfidence. He drew himself tight against the wall, hunching his shoulders up to obscure his face, holding his breath - until the man found his coin at last and rose with a grunt of triumph. The three drunkards moved on, and he was left alone, legs trembling, with nothing but the sharp hammer of his pulse in his ears for company.

The air had a bite to it. It was perhaps November, and he could smell winter coming on the breeze. It seemed to be holding back, gathering itself to roll down from the rim of staggered northern hills that pinned this town against the shore. What would winter be like here? He'd spent most of his life in Paris. There, the pitiless cold rode in on brittle winds, and the snowfalls were pillowed in ash and greasy smoke. Plates of ice clattered down from rooftops; twigs of ice branched between the cobbles. Here, the city seemed insignificant, pinned between rearing hills and thrashing sea - a small civilized holding encroached on by untamed land and water. There was a wild, unfamiliar scent to the air here, and it stirred him strangely. 

The rest of the night passed without incident. He slipped in and out of crevices and lurked in shadows, feeling more sure of himself than he was used to. He cocked his ear at every far-off voice and distant footfall, and kept his secret vigil through all the long hours while the unwary town slept on.

.

Madeleine avoided the Chorin home for several days. His conscience pricked him. But he did not want to see Javert and again be confronted with the man’s hungry gaze and his scars and the desperate pleading in his face. On the other hand, what if he were ill? Madeleine had brought him to town, and Madeleine alone was responsible for him. In the end he sought out Mme. Chorin.

“He’s a strange one, isn’t he?” she marveled. “Quiet, though. No trouble. Almost a gentleman.”

“Is he well? Does he eat?” Madeleine was not sure what he would do if she said no.

“Eats well enough, Monsieur -- though he doesn’t take his breakfast in until the middle of the day. Before that he leaves it sitting at his door for hours. He won’t let me clean for him and there’s nothing that he asks for. I think he likes to be left alone. I try not to intrude." 

“But do you know how he spends his time?” Javert, he reflected, might be sitting even now in the chair where Madeleine had left him, stiff as a corpse and clutching the monstrous knapsack in his lap. “Does he speak to you? Does he go out?”

Mme. Chorin shook her head. “Not as I’ve seen. In his room all day, it seems to me. May I ask you, Monsieur – did he go for a soldier when he was younger? He gets to yelling out sometimes – not words, just sudden cries as if he’s frightened in his sleep. I hear him when I leave his breakfast at the door. I had a rentier had been a soldier – it was years ago, before you came -- and he did the same.” 

“I don’t know,” Madeleine said truthfully. “If he needs anything, or if he seems ill, I’ll trust you to tell me. He has no one else.”

He went home with his step slow. He was thoughtful and worried, and he rubbed nervously at the scars on his wrists. He would visit Javert soon, of course. He'd face the man, see how he was getting on. He'd do his duty. Of course he would. Someday soon.


	11. hills beckon

The next night, Javert again readied himself again for M. Madeleine’s arrival – seams straight, whiskers perfect as he stood at attention by the door. He’d spent two hours rubbing at the spots on his coat. Anticipation burned pure and hot in him, its flames fanned by every creak and rustle on the stairs. But hours passed and Javert's hopes burned down to ashes. His erect bearing slumped, and finally he sat and put his head in his hands. In retrospect, he’d been a fool to imagine the mayor would waste his evenings on a man of no worth. And so he slunk out again into the night -- enraged at himself for entertaining such hubris, and scourged by the humiliation that, deservedly, traveled in pride’s wake. 

He understood: M. Madeleine was too busy, too important to help him master his wild, incorrigible mind and weak nature. The demons that pursued him were his alone to fight.

Wrapped in his coat and the starless dark, he began by keeping to the shadows as before. Before long, however, the twisting knife in his chest made him reckless. Did it still matter what happened to him? This time, he did not stop at the corner of the street. He strode on, facing into the wind. If a stranger looked on him, well, he’d rather be stabbed at by eyes on the street than hunted by the nameless horror that stalked the edges of his thoughts, taunting him to turn and look behind. He turned down the next street. Let them see and stare; let them come for him.

Despite the pain at his center, his mind was not entirely quiet and it became more uneasy the farther he strayed from the apartment where M. Madeleine had installed him. His master had ordered him to go out into the town, and he was only out here trying to obey. On the other hand, M. Ecrain would be furious if he overstepped his bounds, if he were caught wandering where he didn’t belong. That would be arrogance, which was a serious matter. He'd get the stick for it, and the lash too, and the irons - and those unspeakable violations that he had been trained to hold still for. He would submit to all these deserved punishments, since M. Ecrain knew best. But Javert hoped nervously that punishment would not be necessary. 

By the time he’d gone a block farther, he was already winded. Months in chains had weakened him. He took note of his gasping breath and aching legs with satisfied disgust. It was no surprise that he should turn out to be flimsy and defective in body as well as in spirit. Coming to a small rise, he thrust himself forward savagely so that his sides cramped from the effort.

More streets passed. He noted the shops and landmarks. Barber, baker, town fountain, carriage-rental shop. He came upon the main town square that he had seen from his window, and found it as desolate at street level as it had looked from above.

Veering down a narrow avenue, he soon found himself pinned between two lines of rearing tenements with shattered windows, which pressed in on him like squeezing hands. The street was vile with clots of littered refuse. Rough voices carried out to him. His blood quickened. Here, at last, was a part of town that interested him. It was the kind of street where scurrilous men fermented discontent into crime and trouble. _There_ – up that alley, under that sagging balcony -- that’s where he would hide and listen if he were an officer of the law. He’d have a shirt with ripped elbows, a torn coat over it, and he’d sit muttering to himself if anyone came close. 

There were already a couple of slovenly rascals squatting below the balcony, passing a bottle. Strange how low they were talking for a pair of drunks. He slipped into the shadows and eased closer. 

“--Guerin it is, that’s what the chief thinks--”  
“Chief knows shit--”  
"Knows enough to order us out here to freeze our dicks off while he's home in bed."  
“Heh. Guerin, though. I don't see it."  
"You know can’t be but three, four men round here got balls enough to have pulled that job—“  
"My way - we pick them all up, give them a good beating, see what shakes loose."  
“Listen! Hear that? Someone coming—“

Javert, his view limited by the two fish-smelling barrels he was hiding behind, couldn’t see anything but the men’s legs. Below the trousers, ragged at the hem, were two pairs of good leather boots, well-soled. Ah. The men were not drunks. Careless fools, more like it. He shook his head grimly. Men like that almost _deserved_ to get themselves shot; it would make a memorable lesson for the younger officers. If he were chief inspector here-- 

_No. Must not think that way. Arrogant._ He looked over his shoulder nervously. Fortunately, M. Ecrain was not in sight. But again, he thought of the punishments M. Ecrain would inflict for disobedience. M. Ecrain would want him to stay in his lodgings and be available to serve M. Madeleine any time he was required. But M. Madeleine had ordered him out here. It was a riddle with no answer; he did not know what to do. He was bound, like a man on a wheel, to the painful turning of his thoughts. Uncertainty was a torment. He was not accustomed to it, and it gnawed at his insides. 

He looked back in the direction from which he had come, where the Chorins' home must stand silent, his quarters empty and his blanket rumpled in its corner of the floor. He looked further down the alley, and balled his fists. What to do? 

In the end he decided that the thing was already done. He was here on the streets. He belonged to M. Madeleine now and could do no better than follow his master's orders. He was not patrolling, anyway; he was just watching. He would not interfere and would do no wrong, and M. Ecrain could not be too angry. Could he? 

He remained where he was, listening and watching. Finally, as sunrise stole into the eastern sky, the two false drunks clomped off in their shiny boots. Javert followed them for a distance of two kilometers as they headed toward the center of town. His disgust rose at their lack of precautions. They spoke openly now as they trudged along, and never did they so much as glance back over their shoulders to see if they were being tailed. Finally, they turned into a shabby brick building near the town square. Three other men, badly costumed as laborers, were arriving at the same time from another direction. The two groups hailed each other with tired good cheer as they went inside.

Javert retraced his steps toward the Chorins’ home. Soon it would be light and he had no wish to be seen in the street. Also he was tired. But with the coming of dawn his thoughts went again, unhappily, to M. Madeleine's absence the night before. The thought of returning to the too-large, too-empty room filled him with misgivings. As he turned down the Chorins' street his gaze was drawn to the line of treeless hills rising beyond the town's northern border. Dark and solemn they stood. A man could go there and perhaps find a small, secure nook among the rearing rocks, a place of comfort, where no one would see.

And so as the red sun climbed, driving Montreuil’s nocturnal shadow-life underground, Javert left the town behind and pushed his aching, famished body upward and onward, into the sanctuary of the surrounding countryside. 

.

It was several hours later that he came over a rise and saw, at the base of the next stacked hill, a tiny wooden cottage. It was the first sign of habitation he had seen since leaving the town. His pace had been painfully slow, and he was panting as hard as if he’d just run full-out the length of Paris. His body cried out for rest and food. He'd been doggedly following a rude path that led up through tilted fields stubbled with thick shorn stalks and glazed with frost. The landscape was marred with rocky outcroppings and the uneven ground held bowls of drifting mist. He was no farmer, but it struck him as poor country for a man to eke a living from. Still, there was something raw and beautiful that drew him on. He was city-bred and knew nothing of rural France, and the majestic sweep of earth here dazzled him. The scent of wilderness that he had noticed down in the city had become stronger as he climbed. 

As he drew close to the cottage, warily, he noted the crumbling roof and general look of chilly abandonment. Good: there would be no one living here to confront him with stares and questions. The place seemed too small to serve as a home, even for a poor land-worker. It must be a temporary shelter - perhaps used during planting and harvest seasons when every moment of daylight must be wrung from the sun and devoted to work, with no time to waste on travel. He stumbled towards it. Normally he would not help himself to another man’s property without permission, but a desperate fatigue was clouding his conscience. The door hung lopsided on one rusted hinge. There was a heap of hay in the corner, and gratefully he threw himself down.

. 

The pains of his empty stomach woke him. Outside the sun's position proclaimed another two hours of daylight. Mme. Chorin’s breakfast would be moldering outside his door, and before long she would surely be coming up the stairs with dinner to set beside it. The thought of soup and bread made his mouth water. On the other hand, if he set out now he might reach the town before dark, when people were out taking their evening promenade or attending to their errands. He shrank from the thought. He would wait until darkness covered him.

Now that he had rested, his mind was clearer and he wanted to pay for his use of the shelter. But he had no money and no idea where to find the farmer. His eye fell on a heap of forgotten tools standing in the corner under the sagging roof. He recognized an axe and a whetstone, as well as other implements he couldn’t imagine the use of. He rubbed the axe against his sleeve and tested the blade against his thumb. It seemed dull. He knew all about daggers and knives of every kind - the use of them, the methods of concealment on a man's person - but axes were unfamiliar. Still, he set up the whetstone and did his best, and when he was done the blade was sharp enough to leave a clean red slice across his palm. It was, at least, something. 

When he judged the sun low enough, he set out for town. Dusk threw shadows over the barren swells of earth, softening its stark beauty with a sense of age and mystery. How long had the heights stood sentinel above the coast? Before people came and cleared the land and built the city, they had been here watching. He heard a harsh cry in the darkness. Looking up toward the source of the sound, he saw the black shape of a large bird streaking toward a smaller one. As the two met in mid-air, the smaller creature gave a panicked shriek. The larger one, claws outstretched, grabbed hold of it. It circled once, then landed out of sight among the boulders.

Well after dark, he stole up the stairs to his lodgings. A bountiful meal lay outside his door. He fell on it with abandon, like a wild creature.


	12. activities of known criminals

Madeleine tore open the letter. 

_M. le maire:_

 _Regretfully, we have no news of the family you are seeking. There is an old woman in the district who remembers the seven small children and their mother. However, she has no knowledge of where they departed to, and can give no information as to their current whereabouts._

It was not a surprise. He’d sent out inquiries when he first settled in Montreuil and nothing had come of it. Unable to take the pain of not knowing, he had tried to put his lost family from his mind. He tended the memory of his sister and her children rather the way old women in the countryside keep the local shrine, with a mix of reverence and habit – the candle always lit, the steps swept neatly, the prayers said on the right days -- but he did not allow himself to think of them often. It did no good to look back.

His encounter with the Savoyard children had changed and unsettled him. Their careless happiness had illuminated dim snatches from his youth -- his sister's temper, the mischief of the children -- the way a handful of kindling tossed on a fire casts a brief, bright flare into dark corners. The fading clatter of Gaston and Lucie's footfalls had left him sadder than he'd been before, but also made him determined once more to find his family. So he had started over: writing to the mairies and hospitals of Faverolles and the surrounding region. He wrote even to the children’s homes, though his youngest niece, Charlotte -- the one who was starving the night he stood outside the bakery, staring in at the bread -- would be twenty-four if she yet lived. Now the replies to his inquiries were drifting in. For each letter he’d written so painfully, dragging his sister’s name out of the hollow place in his chest and laying it bare on the page, he was rewarded with only a dagger-strike of disappointment. He was sick of the sight of the letter-basket. He was sick of everything, really. But he would go on. People depended on him. It was not as if he had a choice in the matter.

It had been three weeks since he’d last seen Javert.

.

Javert had a routine. By night he roved the streets, listening and following, learning the faces and names of the men who moved in Montreuil’s dark hours. At first light he headed up into the hills, glad to put distance between himself and the waking town, and invigorated - despite his fatigue - by the primitive landscape. His physical abilities were returning. He had always been quick and his endurance during long chases had been legendary. In his other life, the one he was not supposed to think about, he had ranged across Paris in the line of duty, had been fearless in a fight or in pursuit. In the cellar his body had become no more than a repository of pain and hateful vulnerability; he had managed to separate himself from his flesh and believe that it was not precisely a part of him anymore. But now there were brief times when he came over the top of a boulder, breathing hard, and felt almost like a man. 

Throwing himself down in the rude shelter, he would remain senseless until late afternoon. Upon waking, he would work at straighting the shelter - sharpening tools, clearing out debris - to pay for his day's lodging. It pleased him to impose some order on the place. He wondered how he might fix the roof. The season was progressing, and dusk fell earlier as the days passed. 

He took different routes as he staggered up the hillsides, sometimes keeping to the rough path, sometimes hurling himself against the outcroppings and dragging himself up them hand over hand. He had developed a ferocious affection for the open land where wild things stirred and the wind bit hard, bristling his hair and raising little peaks of flesh along his skin. Pale grinning demons rode behind him, taunting him to look back, but it was becoming easier to outdistance them. A disturbing wildness was growing in him - there were even times when, absorbing himself in the angling sprint of a startled rabbit or the slant of dark earth against pale sky, M. Madeleine slipped entirely from his mind. In the hills this seemed natural enough, but when he came down to the town in the evening and stumbled into his quarters - quarters M. Madeleine had provided him -- he was horrified by his ingratitude. Everything he had, to the coat on his back, was a gift from his master. 

And so he castigated himself with the whip, hoping to correct his failings as M. Ecrain would do. He could feel himself slipping anyway. His thoughts went more and more into the past, to the memory of hotblooded hunts through Parisian alleys, the glory of a clean capture, the heft of a weapon in his hand. He missed the chase and the peerless triumph of bringing prey to ground. But these were bad thoughts. With M. Ecrain so far away and M. Madeleine not really any closer, he was veering sharply off the path of righteousness, like a man sliding down a rubble-strewn mountain slope, scrabbling for purchase but finding no way to stop his descent.

“Respect, obedience, service,” he’d mutter between clenched teeth, letting the lash wrap his flesh in its bitter caress. _Arrogance and pride, those were your downfall,_ Ecrain always said; _the flaws we must hammer out of you._ The whip, while it struck, brought him back to those days in the cellar when M. Ecrain had stayed very close and he had seen his duty clearly. But now, clarity lasted only as long as the pain of the lash burned hottest. Within hours, the burn always dimmed to no more than a miserable unrelenting ache -- and before the blood dried on his back, confusion threatened him again. 

_If I am faltering, it’s M. Madeleine’s fault. I warned him what I am._ But that was itself a seditious thought. He brought the whip down harder. 

.

He was slipping through a side alley by the docks, off the Rue de l’Havre, when four men plunged out the back door of a tavern and reeled up against him, nearly knocking him down. One of them turned on him, belligerent. “Hey! Watch it, you!” Javert flinched at being the target of their eyes, but reminded himself there was little to fear. The darkness was his shield. Besides, any men out at this hour were well past drunk and unable to focus their gaze well enough to stare.

“New in town, are you? Want some fun, eh? Want a girl?” He shook his head and prepared to move on, but a look passed among the four and they shifted position subtly so that he was surrounded. Not so drunk after all, he realized. He could read their signals; he understood that the man in front of him was the leader. The others were hanging back, waiting for their cue.

“Who’d you pinch that coat off?" the man said. "Gentleman’s coat on a man like you." Javert broke out in a sweat as four pairs of eyes moved over him, cold and slow, drinking him in. "What you look like, is a man wearing a coat he's got no right to, doing what he shouldn't. Going where he has no business going. I say if a man acts like that, he has to pay.” 

He froze. _Going where he has no business._ It was what he had feared, what he had known was coming. "M. Madeleine said--" he began. "Please, you must tell M. Ecrain--"

He swallowed and could say no more.

The man to his left made a quick move in the darkness and suddenly a stick appeared in his hands. Javert shrank back. “I have permission from M. Madeleine!” But his voice was a squeak and he could see the men didn’t believe it. He didn’t believe it himself. M. Madeleine wouldn’t want him here, in the wrong place, getting into trouble. 

“Good friend of the mayor, are you?” the leader asked. “He's the one lent you his coat, I’m sure.” In the light from the tavern’s back window Javert saw his broad, good-humored smile.

“I didn't steal it,” Javert whispered. “I wouldn’t."

The man with the stick spoke out of the side of his mouth. “Come on, look at him. He’s simple. What’re we gonna get from this?” 

“Simple he may be, but that’s a gentleman’s coat he been mud-rolling in - and so much the better if he hasn’t wits to defend himself.” The leader was nearly as tall as Javert but broader. Now he leaned an arm easily against the brickface. “My fine sir, why don’t you turn your pockets inside out and we’ll make sure nothing’s been pinched. That’ll make this easy on us all.” He reached out. Javert read the tightening of his other fist in the shadows of his coat, and knew the reach was meant only as distraction from the real attack. Should he defend himself? Or were these men friends of M. Ecrain, sent to correct him? 

The leader moved, and Javert knew what was coming. He did not resist. He was slammed against the wall and spun around; then the stick came down in a slanting blow across the crown of his head, and he tasted metal as he crumpled like wadded paper.

The man with the stick knelt beside him. Another of the group crouched down and grabbed at M. Madeleine's coat, a wicked knife flashing in the darkness. “Pockets're empty,” he grunted. The man in charge swore.

Javert was dazed by the blow, but despite the roaring in his ears and the bursting pain in his temple, his spirit exulted - because he now understood what these men were and, more importantly, what they weren't. These were no friends of M. Ecrain; they were only thieves. Realization of what this meant broke over him all at once. These men had violated the law, and now the law would answer. He grinned, lips drawing back. Then he reached out.

The man beside him gave a cry of surprise as Javert twisted the stick so it burst free. He brought his arm back. He was transported with joy as the stick whistled through the air, making a sound as beautiful as it was familiar. Javert felt the power of the stick surge into his arm. Now he was up on his feet, and it was the four men who were shouting and falling around him, wheat before the sickle. Doubt fell away from him. This was what he was good at, it was what he was made for: not to cower but to fight. To fight! He was the law. He was the might of authority, and they would pay, and pay, and pay. He swung the stick again and another man screamed in agony. He would bear no more degradation. In the name of justice and the uniform, he would—

A man’s voice split the air. “Stop! Police of Montreuil! Surrender yourself!”

Boots clattered over the stones. He looked up, terrified, as they rushed in on him. The men groaning at his feet were forgotten. He dropped the stick and spread his hands wide and turned slowly to face his end. 

They put his face against the wall, twisting his hands behind him. Sure as fate he felt the manacles, so familiar, lock into place. 

.

“I’m sorry about this, Monsieur. It’s all he’s been saying since our men caught him in a dust-up last night. Just, ‘M. Madeleine gave me my orders. I serve M. Madeleine. That’s all I’ll say.’

“Thank you, Chief Inspector. You were right to send for me. Do you know what he was doing on the docks at that hour?”

“Well, at first blush, looked like he was braining half of the Rue de l’Havre for the maniac joy of it. But we brought the victims in, sir. ‘Victims’ is a term I’m using loosely here. They’re well-known on the docks. We've brought them in plenty of times for making trouble for the working girls, but we never get any testimony to hold them. If there was a fight, Monsieur, I would say they started it. His coat pockets are both sliced open.”

“Will there be any charges?” Madeleine asked.

“None sir. Defense of body and property, justified under the Code. Unless you have reason to think different.” Chief Inspector Magritte gave Madeleine a sidelong look. “So he's known to you? When he said, 'M. Madeleine gives me my orders,' he was telling the truth?" 

Madeleine smiled politely and did not answer.

.

Upon being escorted to the holding room, Madeleine insisted that there would be no danger if he entered alone. Through a square of glass in the door, he beheld the lone man within. He was of bizarre appearance: tall, gaunt as a scarecrow who'd lost its stuffing; whiskers neatly trimmed but hair long and tangled as weeds. His eyes stared forth above hollow cheeks, and his upright bearing and air of vigilance lent a general impression of militant savagery. Strangest of all was his attire. The coat he wore had once been fine but now was covered with the soil of the streets and what appeared to be hay in generous quantities. Both coat pockets were cut open on two sides so the cloth flapped. Around his neck he wore a black cloth – a cravat, Madeleine realized – wrapped and knotted like the collar of a dog. His trousers, matted with filth, ended some inches above the ankle.

The man jumped as Madeleine opened the door. In one quick movement he dashed across the room and pressed his back to the farthest wall. His eyes were huge with fright.

“Javert,” said Madeleine. He was truly shocked.

Javert stared back for a moment. Then he made a jerking bow. “M. le maire," he said. "You’ve come. I did not think-- I dared not hope-- Forgive me.” His voice was barely above a whisper; Madeleine had to strain to hear it. “I am so— so sorry, Monsieur.“

“Never mind that now. Are you hurt?”

“No, Monsieur.”

“These officers say you are being released. I should take you to the hospital.”

“No, Monsieur, please. Being released? Is that what you said?”

“Yes. Did the others attack you? Did they rob you?”

“They could not. I had nothing in my pockets but my hands.” He held them up – both so dirt-encrusted so that the creases on the palm were marked in black. “I am sorry. I have caused you trouble. I should not have been on the docks. I should have stayed home and waited for you to come. However long you took.”

Madeleine thought guiltily of the weeks he’d let slip past. “Don't apologize. It doesn't matter. What were you doing out there?”

“I? I was... walking about.”

“I see.” Madeleine rubbed his chin. “If you won’t let me take you to the hospital, at least let me see you home.” Javert began to protest, claiming that his bad conduct had detained M. le maire too long already -- but Madeleine silenced him with a look. 

One of the arresting officers was loitering by the door and watched them go. “Your acquaintance is quick with his hands, Monsieur le maire. Watched him take down four men with just a cudgel. Perhaps someday he might care to teach me how that’s done.”

Javert ducked his head and seemed to draw himself smaller. Madeleine ushered him out. “Perhaps,” he muttered.

.

When they reached Javert’s lodgings, the two men stood in silence. Javert pulled out a chair for Madeleine, who found himself too agitated to sit. “Javert,” he said. “I am much afraid that – that you’re not well.”

“Do not concern yourself. It is only a blow on the head, and some bruises.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I assure you, Monsieur, I am quite well.”

“What have you been doing, these past weeks?”

“Walking about. Sleeping.”

“Walking among the taverns, in the still of night? Why there?”

“Will you order me to stop, Monsieur?” There was an anxious note in Javert’s voice.

“No, Javert. It’s not for me to tell you where to go, or not to go.” Javert looked up, startled. “I only worry that you’ll be hurt. The docks are dangerous by evening and worse at night. Please be careful. If you like to walk, I can show you some of the better areas near the city center.”

He could not make the man out. With his bizarre attire and innocent disregard of danger, he seemed like a child. But it wasn’t a child he’d seen leaping to his feet in the holding room of the station-house. A creature of the wilderness, shy and savage - that's what he'd seemed. 

Here in his lodgings, Javert looked slightly calmer and less ready to bolt. But he had certainly changed since Madeleine had last visited him here. Under the layer of grime, his look was alert. Gone was the desperate slavishness that had weighted Madeleine with oppressive guilt. 

“I won’t be harmed. You need not worry about me, Monsieur.” He touched his collar – cravat, rather – in the familiar gesture.

“Hm, perhaps not. That officer who watched you leaving seemed to think you could take care of yourself.” He was struck by a thought. “It’s an idea, isn’t it? You say you want to work. You might train that officer to fight as you do. You could train them all: raise them up to the standards you're used to in Paris. I imagine the police force of Montreuil can't hold a candle to the men of the Paris prefecture. You'd be useful. You would not have to patrol the streets. I could speak to the chief inspector." 

Javert shrank back, all his nervous energy crumbling suddenly into timidity. “Monsieur,” he choked. “Please do not ask that of me.”

“Well, all right." He sighed. "But think it over. I take it your officers' training in Paris is where you learned to fight like that?”

“No," the other answered hesitantly. "It was before then, monsieur.”

“Ah." He remembered. "Yes. You were a prison guard.” He tried to make the words sound natural.

“Yes. And to survive at Toulon, a guard had to handle himself well. But I learned to fight even before then -- when I was a child.”

Madeleine had never wondered about Javert’s childhood. Strange to think of him ever being small or crying over a skinned knee in his mother's arms. What sort of child grew up to choose a life of tyrannizing the helpless? “Tell me about your early years,” he said. "It is a story I'd like to hear.”

Something in the other man’s face closed up. “Monsieur. I am afraid it is less than interesting.” But Madeleine waited, not looking away. After a moment Javert looked down at his hands and said reluctantly, "I was born in Paris. I did not have advantages and was raised mostly in a boys’ home there from the time I was nine. That is where I learned to fight. At fifteen I went to work at the Bagne of Toulon.” 

“Fifteen!" This was not to be believed. Javert had been fully grown, eighteen at least, when Madeleine had first seen him striding the parapets of the prison. "That’s too young for guard duty. Or-- so I would imagine.” 

“I was not a guard then. Only an attendant.” Madeleine was not familiar with the term, and at his raised eyebrows Javert explained further. “You can’t have girls employed in a bagne. I did a servant’s job in the guards’ dormitories: sweeping out the rooms, stoking the fires in winter. I helped the kitchen boys, too, when the cooks were short-handed. Later I took on extra work in the armory and the stables. Some of the younger guards helped me. In exchange for my labor, they were willing to give me lessons.”

“Lessons of what kind?”

“Shooting, riding. Not things we were taught in the boys’ home. But things a man must know if he wishes to earn a uniform.” A light came into Javert’s eyes. “I practiced. Every evening when my work was done, no matter how late the hour. I was eighteen before I thought myself proficient enough to apply for a guard's post. The day they told me that I was being taken on as a probationer, that was-- it was the best day of my life." He had warmed to his own words, and the hint of a smile, almost childlike in its simplicity, lingered at the corners of his lips.

Madeleine listened, finding the tale strangely moving. A child from a Home wasn’t expected to make anything of himself. Most boys ran away young to a gamin life of starving and stealing. The older ones became criminals or layabouts upon their release. Some of the girl-children went into service; most just washed away down the city streets like rain in the gutters. 

"And did you like it?” he asked, genuinely curious.

Javert straightened. His soft look passed away and he took on a martial bearing, rigid and upright. “Yes,” he said. “It suited me. I was proud to wear the uniform – my first – and proud to do my work well."

Madeleine’s pleasant warmth fled. In Javert's straight back and the lift of his chin, he saw his nineteen years of agony thrown back at him. It had been only a trick of the light, of age and distance and the nostalgia that softens an older man's ideas of youth, that had made him forget the nature of Javert's former profession. “Oh,” he said bitterly. “So you liked that: holding men in chains. Flogging them; crushing their souls--“ He bit his tongue.

 _The scars on my back,_ he thought. _The scars from your hand. And I was so insignificant to you, that today you look me in the face and have no memory of how you served me._ That seemed, suddenly, the greatest injury: his youth and his life had been swallowed by torment within those walls, and he was not remembered even by one who had dealt the blows. 

But Javert was not looking at him. His brow was furrowed and now he spoke coldly, as if from far away. "Those convicts at the bagne needed discipline. They were akin to beasts – preying on society, like wolves on sheep.”

“And you-- you thought of yourself as a shepherd, did you?” Bile gathered in the back of Madeleine's throat. He could not believe that just a moment ago he had felt some sympathy for this man.

Javert drew back his upper lip. Possibly it was a snarl, possibly a smile. “No. I am not a shepherd – but something else entirely. There is a legend told in Asturias—“ He broke off. 

“Animals. Beasts to be whipped.” Madeleine ground his teeth. “That’s what they were to you.” 

"My father himself was such an animal. Already in the galleys by the time I was born, and my mother in prison. I had their bloodline. Born in a wolf-litter, only two choices before me."

Madeleine grimaced and turned away. Through his early years at Toulon he had lain awake silently screaming to God: _Why? Why?_ Well, here was his answer. In Javert's eyes he had been a low creature who deserved only beatings and humiliation. Realizing this ignited his fury.

“So: those wolves, as you imagined them to be. You thought flogging them was their just due. You found it satisfying. I have not forgotten that you said as much the night we came from Paris.”

“That is so.” 

If there was remorse in Javert, it did not show. In fact the opposite: his voice, his look, had become stony as he spoke of the miserable men he once commanded, as if the thought of them drove all sentiment from his soul. Madeleine's ire burned raw and hot, like flesh flayed by a knotted cord and drenched with saltwater and bent to hard labor under a pulsing August sun.

“Did it not strike you,” he hissed, “that they were _men?_ Not so different from their guards? Men with families, and hopes, and desires. Fallen men, yes, as all men are fallen. But animals? No. I tell you: they were men!” Only after he had spoken did he hear the strangeness of his words, as they must sound to the other man. “I have long been interested in the bagnes,” he said quickly. “It is supposed that the rigors of hard labor can change a criminal into an honest citizen, but I cannot say I believe this to be more than a myth born of man's cruelty and ignorance.”

Javert was unperturbed by the outburst. “Rarely can criminals be changed into honest men,” he agreed. His timidity had vanished, and he spoke now with authority. “Even a boy not yet set in his path finds change almost impossible. To change takes a fierce spirit: one must dedicate oneself to the task above all other desires. Still, even criminals deserve to be shown the way. You take a man who at his core is lawless and you show him the rules he must follow – all of them, the rules grand and petty; the ones he understands and the ones that mean nothing to him. You show him the rules; then you show him again. You beat him as often as you must, because that is the only sort of reasoning this class of men understand. You do this every day. You do it for all the years the man wears the red smock. You persist even when you are tired and it is easier to pretend you do not see his infractions. Only then can you be certain you have done your best for society. Whether the prisoner profits from your efforts, of course" -- Javert shrugged coolly --"is up to him. I knew few men who did. But I never flagged in my duty.”

Madeleine listened, incredulous. “ _That_ is why you beat the prisoners? To teach them the way of the law?"

"Yes. Why else?"

"You thought that enforcing with violence your thousand petty rules--”

“Not my rules. I did not create them.”

“—a thousand petty rules, and punishing them for every infraction no matter how slight – you thought this pointed them towards their salvation?” 

“Yes.”

How well he remembered Javert's generosity with whip and cudgel. Ten lashes for a word of defiance; five for a sullen look. A spilled bowl at mealtime had once earned him a blow across the shoulder that left his arm stunned and limp for days; unable to work well, he had then been whipped for presumed laziness. Blow upon blow; a life built of pain and degradation -- and now Javert dared claim that all along his intentions had been pure? He clenched his hands at his sides. “In all of history,” he spat, “such an approach has never improved anyone. Never once, I promise you, has it enlightened any human soul.”

Javert tilted up his chin. His next words were spoken quietly - yet with such firmness that they rang in Madeleine's ears. “You are wrong,” he said. “It enlightened mine.”

. 


	13. shattered objects

Madeleine stopped with his mouth open; his words -- for he had been about to press his argument further -- stuck in his throat.

Javert nodded. “Yes. At the Home. When I was twelve the director took me out in a carriage. I had never ridden in one before. He showed me the wagon-train passing through from Bicetre, loaded with convicts. I don't know where they were bound; perhaps even for Toulon. He showed me the miserable beasts chained together, and told me that in such a conveyance my father had ridden to the galleys. My grandfather too, as likely as not. Then he told me how I might escape their fate. Obedience to the law: to all laws, great and small - that was the only path by which one such as I could be redeemed. M. Lemois believed I could better myself, in spite of my bad ways and my parentage. He was exacting, and harsh when I failed. And so -- I learned. I improved.” Javert's speech was no longer halting and hesitant. “I left behind the wildness and indolence of my youth and made something of myself. More than that: I developed understanding."

Madeleine stared, for a new transformation had come over Javert while he spoke. The haggard, wild-eyed creature was gone, and now the martial guardsman had also melted away. Javert appeared younger, suddenly, despite the dirt that mired his countenance and the hard lines etched by age and hardship. His gaze was now fixed on a distant point. His eyes, his whole face, shone with a lighted brilliance, and with a clarity and joy so great that Madeleine stared, riveted. He could not look away. Javert's countenance recalled for him a golden night, years past, in Digne. Javert’s face was the Bishop’s face -- for, though it lacked the Bishop's gentleness, it was transfigured now by faith and glowed like polished silver lit by flame. 

Javert had risen to his feet. Now he continued, his voice swelling. "The law, you see, is the foundation of society. It is all that keeps men from falling into savagery. It preserves our civilization from the creeping spread of the wild forest beyond, and the ways of the beasts that roam there. To strive to follow the law perfectly - to remain irreproachable even at the cost of one's life - that is the noble calling. It is what elevates us - what makes us men!” He stood upright and proud, gripping the table, his eyes fiery. A chill passed over Madeleine. The bizarre and ragged man he had found in Paris had changed shape before his eyes, like an enchanted beast out of fable. The caged lunatic had shed his disguise and revealed the robes of a soldier-priest beneath. His words and bearing made him large so that his presence filled the room. Madeleine, momentarily under his strange spell, could only stare with awe and wonder. 

But then, all at once, Javert crumpled. “No. No, no no. I am mistaken. This is not right.” The light that had transformed him was gone; snuffed out. Now he looked about him with the bewilderment of a lost child. And suddenly he pounded his fist violently against his thigh. “No! Loyalty - that is the highest calling!” He spoke more rapidly, his words a rushed mumble that Madeleine could barely understand. “A man must be devoted to his superiors. He must obey. That is the most important thing." He muttered, "On this I must not get confused.” He looked up at Madeleine, fearful now, and stammered, “My apologies, Monsieur. I forget myself.”

Madeleine, thrown once more by the latest turn, found his voice. “But, Javert, then – where loyalty to the law is at odds with loyalty to one’s superior, what is a man’s duty? Not all superiors are sinless." He was thinking of Gisquet and Chabouillet - but not of them alone. "Suppose one's superior is, let’s say, not what he appears to be – not what he ought to be – what should a man do?”

Javert pondered. He twisted his hands in his lap. "Treachery, disloyalty," he said at last; "those are the worst crimes a man can commit. Loyalty does not ask questions. If it happens that a superior makes a small error, then it is-- it is not for an inferior servant to correct him, or even to notice. For surely the superior reports in his turn to a still greater man -- and it is that leader who will correct the errors of the men beneath him.”

“True,” said Madeleine slowly. “But supposing the man's superior knows nothing - or supposing he has no one above him? Would you keep silent if you caught a superior in a crime?” Madeleine slipped his fingers under the cloth of his cuff and touched his scars. He was a marked man in a less-than-perfect disguise. 

“I-- I can’t—“ Javert flinched. Every line of him – his taut muscles, strained jaw, and heavy brow – bespoke an unhappy struggle. Finally he shook his head as if trying to free himself of his thoughts. “Respect, obedience, service," he muttered. "That is what I was taught. Those are my obligations. If I keep to them and never falter, I can be redeemed. And I must not falter!” He said this last with vehemence. 

Madeleine regarded the man before him: dirty and disheveled, twisting his hands together, wearing his master's cast-off attire. Behind him could be seen the shadow of the man Ecrain, grinning as he held a whip in one hand, the black knapsack in the other. Javert had been a different man before Ecrain had made him what he was. According to Duval, he had for many years been an honest officer in Paris. And before that, he had been a tyrant in Toulon. And what had he been before that? Only a boy straining to avoid his father's fate, steered by this Lemois into unquestioning worship of the rule of law. 

And before that? What had Javert's true nature been, what was he born as, before he was chiseled by hard circumstances and molded by the will of other men?

For that matter: what nature had Madeleine himself been born to, before he was Madeleine - before he swore himself to follow the Bishop's example - before the Bagne taught him rage and bitterness - before deprivation and the loss of his parents shaped his youth? 

“Javert,” Madeleine said awkwardly. The man's unkempt appearance now troubled him even more. If Javert was no more than other men had made him, then his filthy attire reflected only the neglect of his current master. “Listen. You must let me get more suits for you. If you will give me your uniform from Paris, I will pass it to my housekeeper as a model so she can provide you with a proper fit this time. I cannot let you continue to go about like this.”

Javert recoiled. "If you would let me earn my salary, I would use it to buy myself as many suits as you would wish me to have.” His eyes dropped to Madeleine’s lap. “I don't want gifts. A man who does no work is worthless. He has no chance to ever be redeemed.” 

“It is I who am not redeemed,” muttered Madeleine, “if you are seen in the town looking as you do.” 

Javert’s cheeks flamed at these words, and he ducked his head. “Ah! I had not thought of that. I shame you. I am in your employ; you are judged badly if my appearance is lacking. A thousand apologies, Monsieur. I am stupid to not have understood.”

It pained Madeleine, Javert's appraisal of his motives, as it struck too near the truth. “No, no,” he said. “I am not the one who matters. I am thinking only of you.”

“I am failing you.” Javert's voice cracked. He sank into a chair and looked at the floor. “I am failing at everything.”

A crisp knock sounded at the door. Madeleine had heard no one approach and flashed a startled look at Javert. “It is Mme. Chorin,” the other man responded dully. “She steps heavily with the right foot when she is carrying a tray.” He went to the door, and indeed, there stood the lady of the house. She held out an earthenware platter bearing two steaming mugs and a half-loaf of warm bread. 

“I heard M. le maire’s voice while I was sweeping the stairs,” she said with a smile. “I know you don't usually take breakfast, M. Javert, but as you have company today I took the liberty.” Madeleine was surprised by how easily she addressed Javert, her manner showing womanly affection and respect in equal parts. If she noticed her rentier's agitation or the slit pockets of his coat, the swelling blue crescent rising beneath his left eye or his overall state of disrepute, she gave no sign. She merely handed him the tray. “Good morning, M. Madeleine,” she said cheerily as she withdrew.

Javert set the platter on the table and pushed a mug toward Madeleine. He picked up the other one himself, wrapping it in his large, dirt-blackened hands. “She makes good tea,” he grunted.

“She’ll launder for you as well, if you ask her,” Madeleine said. “Javert. Please. Let me bring you some more clothes.” 

The big, stained hands tightened dangerously around the mug. “I cannot refuse. It must be as you say,” Javert muttered. His entire body was drawn into tense lines. He glowered darkly. “If I am to be-- aahh!” 

A loud crack sounded and Javert swore -- for scalding tea was gushing over his fingers, and shards of shattered crockery crashed to the ground. For a moment he remained motionless, staring down at the mess. His face registered an instant of blank shock. Then, swiftly like a man in terror, he dropped to his knees and lunged for the shards. Scooping them together, he began turning the jagged pieces in great agitation, pushing them against each other. “Like this?” he said in a haggard whisper. “No, it can’t be. This way, perhaps? This way?” He was trembling. He seemed to have forgotten Madeleine’s presence. “No,” he moaned, raking his fingers through the wreckage. “No.”

“Javert.”

The gaunt man started, and blinked up at Madeleine. “I have to fix it,” he said. 

“It’s beyond repair. Javert, don’t worry. She’ll understand.”

“I have to fix it,” Javert repeated. “I must.”

Madeleine knelt beside him. “All right,” he said gently. “Let me help you. I’ll take the pieces to my factory. I have epoxy there.”

Javert hesitated. Then he shook his head fiercely. “You are too kind. But it is not your duty -- and even with epoxy, the cracks will show. The cracks will always show.”

“No. They won’t show.”

“Won’t they? I am certain of it, monsieur!”

“They won’t show. I’ll fix it well, and they won’t show.”

“It is not your duty, Monsieur. I am the clumsy one. And Mme. Chorin is a good woman. She runs an orderly house. A man must not break things; a man must never--”

Madeleine swept the shards into a pile with his hands and, rising, slipped them smoothly into his pocket. “You must not worry. You must rest, Javert. I’ll return the mug to Mme. Chorin later today, once it is fixed. Javert, if I go will you rest? You have been up all night; you fought four men and took a bad blow to the head. I will take care of the mug; you need not worry.” Javert merely looked up at him in mute despair. Madeleine suddenly could not bear it: Javert on his knees; always back to that. Without another word he strode headlong for the door. 

.

It was late afternoon when Madeleine returned to knock at Javert’s door. He had wanted Javert to have time to sleep; also, he had had errands in the town and business at the mairie. Mme. Chorin had merely laughed when he tried to pay her for the shattered mug. She had, however, been eventually convinced to take an extra two francs a week, in exchange for taking on the former inspector’s washing and mending. Yes, she assured Madeleine; she knew how M. Javert was -- didn’t like fuss, didn’t want help. Never mind. She would find a way to get around him. 

He knocked and waited. It was a while before Javert finally opened the door. His expression was dazed; clearly, he had been asleep. Yet the bed linens remained smooth and undented. The black knapsack still squatted on the bed, its top flap agape. Had it not been closed that morning? “Monsieur le maire,” said Javert. He held himself in a pained way, his back bent forward. Perhaps he was feeling his injuries from the night's attack.

“I am sorry if I woke you. I came only to tell you the mug is repaired and returned to Mme. Chorin. Also, there is something. A small thing, only. For you.”

Javert looked down at his mudstained boots; Madeleine wondered if he slept in them. “The suits,” he muttered. “More gifts. But I must take them. Yes; that is my duty. I am yours. I must dress as you wish. I must obey.”

Madeleine produced from behind his back a package. It was rather small – the size of a slim book – and Javert looked at it warily before putting out his hand for it. He edged his crusted fingers under the paper. Then he cried out. 

“Not a gift,” Madeleine said. “Rather, a necessary object. You are in my employ and it is right I should provide for your safety. If you insist on spending more nights down by the docks, it may keep your throat from getting cut.”

“For me?” Javert murmured wonderingly. Gently he lifted the curving strip of leather from its wrapping and turned it around and around. “For me?” 

He straightened up. His hands went to the stained black cravat at his throat. As he unknotted it a ring of grime was revealed beneath. He pressed the stock into Madeleine's hands. He swept the thicket of hair up from his collar and stood erect and still, fixing on Madeleine a look of tremulous hope. 

At the station-house that morning, the junior officer had been puzzled by Madeleine's request. "In the supply room, yes, I suppose. They are kept with the spare uniforms. Are you wanting one for yourself, M. le maire?" No, not for himself. The suits he had wanted to give, those would have been for himself: a sop to ease his guilty conscience. But this: this would be for Javert. It was what the man wanted.

Javert presented his naked throat. Madeleine had not intended to be thrust again into this position; he had meant for Javert to put the stock on by himself when he went out at night. But how could he deny the man whose gaze brimmed now with something like new-found pride? Concealing his reluctance, he set the leather against Javert's neck so it curled to cover the ropy sinews. Above Javert's jutting collarbones were hollows pooled with shadow. Madeleine's fingers grazed the hot, damp skin; he breathed in the homely smells of sweat and dirt and hay. He ran the leather through the shining buckle as quickly as he could manage, and stood back. "There," he said.

With a rapid movement, Javert adjusted the stock so the buckle lay precisely at the back of his neck. There was grace and efficiency to the motion. How many times for how many years had he done just this in Paris, Madeleine wondered: adjusted his uniform, set his stock perfectly in place, prepared himself; and then gone out through the great doors of the Paris headquarters to face the dangers of the street. 

Javert bowed deeply, and when he straightened there was a glint of moisture in his eyes. "Thank you, monsieur,” he said hoarsely.

Madeleine nodded. A lightness had come over him. He had a sudden wish to know Javert, to comprehend the whole of him: the man he had been and the suffering that had befallen him. He longed, suddenly, to reveal to Javert the marks on his own wrists and back. _You gave me these; do you remember? Can you not understand? Before I was Madeleine, I was Valjean for forty-seven years. You knew me then. Look at me! Tell me that you still do!_

Instead he said rather stiffly, “You did a good thing for the town last night. Because you were on hand, no innocent people were robbed by the men you fought. If you wish to continue walking the streets at night, I only beg you to be cautious. Also: you must give that coat and suit to Mme. Chorin to be cleaned and mended regularly." With a sudden smile he added, "That is not an order, merely a request. But the stock is new and your clothes are not. They will not look correct together unless you allow Mme. Chorin to do her work." A faint, unfamiliar feeling rose within him, a kind of aloneness mingled with longing. "Javert," he said. He did not know what made him say it. He did not say anything more. 

Then he stopped short. Javert's face had taken on an odd expression. He was staring intently at Madeleine, and his forehead was dented in concentration. "Javert? Javert, is something wrong?"

Javert shook his head. Still, a certain puzzlement remained in his expression. "I am sorry, Monsieur," he murmured. "For a moment, you looked like someone else-- But it was only the play of the light, surely." 

"I see." Madeleine drew his coat closer around himself. He felt cold suddenly, and took his leave.


	14. whispers in the dark

_M. Chabouillet’s fine hands were at Javert’s throat, stroking the dark leather. Javert dared not breathe. He was afraid the slightest movement might upset the brimming cup of joy that he cradled carefully between his palms. M. Chabouillet adjusted the buckle and stood back with a smile. “Yes. From my own collection. For you.”_

_“Then – I am forgiven?” It shocked him how easily the words came, now that he knew the answer._

_“Of course. I once pinned a medal to your chest, don’t you remember?”_

_“That was the peak of my career, Monsieur le Secretaire. The Silver Cross.”_

_“The whole department turned out to see you honored: you - the man who broke the back of Rue Sixieme.”_

_“Five years ago. Monsieur.” His throat contracted with emotion. “Monsieur--”_

_“You got your promotion then. We made you Inspector, first class. I always knew you would make me proud.”_

_He could not speak; he burned with happiness. He had admired M. Chabouillet from the first, had worked so hard for his respect. As, at the Boys' Home, he had worked so hard for M. Lemois._

_“You must have known, Javert, that I always watched you. You were the best of all my boys.”_

__Best of all my boys._ He was to be taken back like the prodigal son. He wanted to kiss M. Chabouillet’s hem, to prove himself, to die for him._

 _But-- something was wrong. He held the cup and M. Chabouillet poured; but the cup was cracked and the level was sinking. M. Chabouillet tilted the steaming teapot carefully, too carefully; and poured too slowly. The level went on sinking and this made Javert nervous._

_Faster! Faster! Don’t let it all run dry!_

_“Do you remember,” M. Chabouillet went on - but was it M. Chabouillet? - “the morning you left me, left the Home, for your first job in Toulon? You put out your hand as I had taught you and we shook goodbye. I knew you would do great things.”_

_The memory of that morning drove him to say the words that had been in his heart for so long. “Monsieur,” he burst out desperately. “I never meant-- believe me; I never wanted to accuse you. But there was evidence I could not ignore. There was the law. Don't you see I had no choice?”_

_M. le Secretaire smiled. His face had shifted. He wore now a convict's smock and his beard was ragged and stained with gray. But his voice was still strong and full of power. “I absolve you. You only did what you thought best. I can't be angry.”_

_Only then did a dark misgiving finger Javert’s innards. “But why are you here?” he whispered. “Gone to the galleys, everyone said. Gone before I was even born - taken away in the wagons, cursing me as you went.” But M. Chabouillet shook his head at that, and Javert flinched, knowing he had said something wrong. He looked down at his hands. They dragged heavily; they clanked when he moved. The irons were black and there were chains at his ankles too. “No,” he moaned. “It can’t be.” He heard laughter. M. Chabouillet was gone._

.

He woke, his face against the wall and his cheeks wet. He mopped them on the thin blanket that had tangled around his legs. Stiffly he got to his feet. Dreams were a trap; a man could get lost in them. His flayed back throbbed but the pain was stale and offered no escape. He put his hands up to his neck. The stock at least was real. 

Could that mean there was hope after all?

Outside the town was dark; the darkness beckoned. He wolfed down his supper and plunged out into the frosty starless night. 

Winter was deepening. After the night's patrol, he still turned his feet toward the hills every morning when the thin December dawns launched their weak glow from the east. The dirt path that cut upwards through the rough rural landscape was pitted and lumpy now with frozen mud. Frost and hay were the only scents that carried in the cold. When he sniffed the wind, frigid air scorched the insides of his nostrils. 

Down in the town, meanwhile, the two fake drunks were still to be found most nights, huddled under the broken balcony on Tenement Row. Now they wore greatcoats – clean ones; no holes or missing buttons – which matched their shiny boots. The older of the two was called Martel. Javert listened in, liking the man's dour gravity, and the gravel timbre of his voice. 

“Been saying it for a while. But chief has the wind up. Soon, that's the word from Paris. It'll be soon.”  
"What? What word? The squawking out of Paris is always the same, you ask me. Twelve years I've worked--."  
“Says they’re going to start landing here. Right here, and not much longer, now Marseilles’s locked up tight as a drum.”  
“Lousy time for it. I wouldn't be a sailor, not in winter. Think we’ll be ordered out to stand in the way of it?”  
“Hah. Chief hasn’t the heart for it, you ask me.”  
“Would be a pisser if he did.”  
“Eh. No use complaining. This is our lot: squatting and watching while the rich people sleep, or getting our brains blown out of their buckets. That's what we've got to look forward to.”  
“True words, friend.” 

A shadow among shadows, he moved among half-tumbled walls and piles of refuse behind the poor apartments, in neighborhoods where one window in three was punched out like a broken tooth. He loitered and listened alongside taverns. Just as in Paris, bitter weather kept most troublemakers off the streets. Those still outside were mostly town women and their sailors, or drunks who’d been vomited forth onto the street when the taverns closed, or police officers. By this time, Javert recognized all the men on night watch whether uniformed or not. He was disgusted to see that their patrols followed unvarying routes. They never glanced over their shoulders. A thief could stroll a block behind them, laughing and robbing every house. 

One night while keeping watch from a crevice in a dockside alley, he recognized three of the men he’d fought. They were moving together, drifting over the new-fallen snow like a patch of fog. He saw what they had their eye on. A swaying sailor with a saint's medallion at his neck was boasting of past exploits to the town woman on his arm; neither was aware of the predators closing distance behind them. Javert fell in behind, staying out of sight. His instincts told him what was coming. He longed to bring the men down. But of course that could not be considered. M. Ecrain had forbidden it. He was no longer fit to do such work.

As the predatory pack moved in swiftly, he wrapped both hands around an icy post to keep himself from interfering. The sailor and his woman were taken from behind and slammed down onto the cobbles, their fearful shouts lost to the wind. Their pockets and purses were stripped and the man's chain ripped from his throat. The attackers raced off and Javert stared after them, still gripping the post. He felt angry and ashamed.

In the hills he no longer stopped at the first shelter but pushed on to a second one he had discovered, two kilometers farther up the slope. It stood exposed on a high flank of cropland, and was just as forlorn and badly kept as the one below. Some days, when the path was newly iced or the wind pushed back at him like a fist, he wasn't sure he'd make it. Stumbling inside at last, he would feel a dart of pride and then simple relief as he collapsed into the waiting heap of hay. The wind moaned around the corners of the shelter like a savage lullaby. 

_._

_“You’re improving, Javert. The lessons are having the desired effect. I’ll unlock your irons now. Keep your hands behind your back.”_

_“Yes, Monsieur.”_

_“Bread. Have some.”_

_“Thank you, Monsieur.” The tough heel of bread was held out in a two-fisted grip. Javert, hands clenched behind his back, used his teeth to rip off a dry hunk. It stuck in his throat. He would earn water when the day’s lesson was done._

 _He was glad he was improving. He understood now the depth of his treachery, and how important it was to redeem himself. _Arrogance, stupidity, dishonesty, ingratitude, pride._ He repeated these words with M. Ecrain. He confessed them to God when he was alone. How terrible they sounded in the dark. The cellar had become peopled with gargoyle faces and whisperers and accusing fingers. _

_“You betrayed the men who gave you everything. You deserve to be left here forever and forgotten. Do you not?”_

_“Yes.” The harsh words made him writhe with shame. Yet no other answer was possible._

_“And yet," M. Ecrain said, eying him, "M. Chabouillet has today decided you shall have another chance. He thinks redemption is possible. He has called for you. What do you think of that?”_

_Javert's terror was as great as his hope._

_M. Ecrain's pistol dug into the small of his back as he climbed the stairs. His legs ached from the effort; it was a relief to arrive at the top landing where a faint wash of light showed the outline of a door. His hands had been left free and the chain between his ankles had been lengthened so he could walk. Still the irons dragged at him like an anchor._

 _“What are the three pillars of honor?” Ecrain demanded. Javert knew this. _Respect, obedience, service._ M. Ecrain nodded and threw open the door, loosing a sudden explosion of light bright as a cannon-fuse._

_He had forgotten what the main hall of the headquarters looked like. He felt dazed, like a man revisiting his childhood home after fifty years. He blinked around him. How long had it been? The pistol prodded him forward. He shuffled. He could not keep track of the turns, the hallways upon hallways. He stumbled along, until M. Ecrain said, "Stop."_

_He was in the office of M. le Secretaire. He was terrified._

_At least M. Ecrain was with him. That was the only comfort, the only protection, and he was deeply grateful for it. At least, he would not have to face the man he’d wronged, alone._

_._

Javert always awoke fearful, with full daylight beating at him through the cracks in the shelter walls. He'd leap up quickly with his bad dreams skittering away like mice. To escape them, he’d plunge out into the frigid air, touching the stock at his throat. He tried to summon M. Madeleine’s face. Sometimes even that brought more unease than comfort. 

The sky faded earlier now, as December had passed its midpoint. Immediately upon waking, he struck out for the city, arriving just after dark. He wanted to be on the streets soon after sunset to keep an eye on all that happened in Montreuil's shadows. He had grown to think of the city as territory under his watch, ceded to him by M. Madeleine. He must patrol it well.

Lately Mme. Chorin knocked frequently at his door when she delivered his evening meal. She had explained that her husband was recently injured, and there were household tasks she could use his help with. At her request he stuffed oiled rags into the cracks around the windows; he checked the soundness of the chimney, and hauled in the water when the water carrier made evening rounds in his decrepit wagon. He would take no payment. However, because she was insistent, he finally bent and accepted a bargain: in lieu of money she would do his laundering and mending twice a week, and provide him with heated water every evening. Therefore, two mornings a week he did not withdraw directly from the streets to the solitude above. He returned first to his lodgings before sunrise. There, he put his soiled clothes outside his door for his landlady, and wore his old Parisian uniform up into the hills. 

_._

On Tenement Row under the broken balcony: 

“Don’t try it, Martel. Not less you want yer woman to know. Girls always know, it’s fucking witchery.”  
“Fine piece of ass, though; be worth it—“  
“Ha, but if Marie throws you out, don’t come round my place begging for a corner to lay your head."

_._

Two men talking behind the butcher shop after moonrise:

“Four times I asked him for what he owed. Fifth time, I caught him over the head with a piece of brick.”  
“Showed him proper.”  
“Eh, was idiot’s work. He’s laid up good, factory’s going to cut him loose. Now I’ll never get what’s owed me.”  
“It’s the principle, though. You showed him. Saves trouble later.”  
“May be right.”  
“Always right, don’t you know that? Fucking genius when I’m drinking.” 

_._

Three black shapes, huddled together on the north side of the town square, backs against the wind and collars up. The biggest one, Boudrillard, was yanking on his gloves.

“Three more days and then we go. Gonna be fireworks. What about it, Chuvint? You ever faced such a thing?”  
“No,” said the man to his left. Javert recognized him by his whistling lisp as the harelipped one who was Boudrillard's partner, slow of speech but vigorous of build. The third man added, “Not me either.”  
“Green, that’s what you are. But wait and see. This is the good part. Five of us are going to be called in on it, that’s what I heard. Us three, and Madocq and LeShandre.”  
The man with the harelip considered this. “How do we know five’ll be enough?”  
“Chief Magritte knows. Quit thinking about it. Time comes, you don’t think. Pray fast, then shoot and get it done.” 

_._

On the docks outside the Lion d’Argent:

“Want a good time, cheri? All night, two francs, best time this side of Paris.”  
“Hah, you’ve got a fine opinion of yourself, love. Fifteen sous and no more.”  
“Fifteen sous! The hell with you!” 

_._

He pushed on past the second shelter and struck even higher into the forlorn hills. Here the stone outcroppings jutted out fiercely from the slope like obscene sculptures. He gasped from the icy gusts ricocheting off ice-mottled black rock. He spied another tumbledown shack in the far distance and made his way towards it, but the clear cold air deceived him and it was farther than he'd thought. By the time he came upon it, the sun was almost overhead and his sides were heaving. The city below was a speckled smear. The beautiful and barren wasteland stretched around him in a bitter embrace, and he panted and looked all about him, taking it in. With a long, sharp stone he was able to pry open the stuck door. Inside, the close-pressed walls and sifted darkness felt snug and natural - more suited to him, even, than Mme. Chorin's home.

As he stumbled in, out of the wind, exhaustion fell upon him all at once. Sinking down, he knew no more. 

_._

_M. le Secretaire was behind his desk. He looked just as Javert remembered. How was that possible, after the lifetimes that had passed? His eyes were the same eyes as before. His hands the ones that had pinned the Silver Cross on Javert's collar five years before. But his lips were curled in a new shape._

_“So. Ecrain here tells me you’ve been learning.”_

_He didn’t know if he was supposed to answer, but the silence and M. Chabouillet's gaze were together more than he could bear. “M- Monsieur,” he said at last. The light at the office window seared his eyes. He had spent so long in the shelter of the dark._

_M. Chabouillet pushed his chair back and came out from behind his desk. M. Ecrain took his place. M. Chabouillet circled and stood behind Javert, out of his sight. Something complicated was happening, and Javert, not knowing what to do, half-turned to face him. But M. Ecrain laid hands on his shoulders and turned him back. Then he felt M. Chabouillet's hands on him - at his waist, then pushing up his shirt, and he started and gasped - but a look from M. Ecrain told him he was meant to hold still. One lone cold finger traced the wounds on his back. “Hands on the desk,” M. Chabouillet snapped. More gently he added, “Do you remember, Javert, the day I pinned it on you? Your medal?”_

_“Y- yes, monsieur.” He set his hands uncertainly to each side of the blotting paper._

_“I had great hopes for you. You disappointed me. Watching you derail your career was, I think, even worse than suffering your lies and betrayal. It was painful to learn that my faith in you had been unjustified.”_

_“I – I am sorry, sir.” The inadequacy of the words struck him as pitiful and he regretted them at once. Then his trousers were yanked down and he felt a rush of air. He bucked and cried out. “Monsieur! what--!” But M. Ecrain gripped his shoulders firmly with a reassuring touch._

_“Hold still,” he said. “Remember: Respect. Obedience. Service. Say it.”_

_He did. He tried. And then--_

_He screamed. Twisted away, hands up in fists, as pain entered him like a dazzling spike and he gasped. What—? Why--? He was reduced all at once to nothing but a dumb beast without comprehension, knowing only enough to struggle in terror. He lunged, hearing his own scream. He was jerked back close and forced tight against the desk. M. Ecrain now had him by the shoulders in a hard grip, and slammed him chest-down on the desk. His chin struck wood and stars burst behind his eyes. M. Chabouillet’s heavy body pinned him in place. M. Chabouillet kneed his thighs apart. Again came the thrust, the pain, and once more he screamed as he fought frantically, weakening by the moment as the two men held him down and Chabouillet drove into him without mercy. He was no longer a man. His whole self was one thing only: a scalded hole._

_“Hold still,” M. Ecrain commanded. He was gritting his teeth from effort, his hands still bearing down on Javert with irresistible force. “Try to bear it. Try to be quiet.”_

_Through the shocking pain, that voice reached him. M. Ecrain had given him an order. He clamped his jaws together, penning in his agony. Instead of screams, high-pitched grunts now escaped between his teeth, issuing rhythmically as his hips were slammed again and again against the edge of the desk. It was a sound he’d never heard from his own throat before, and it drove him further into terror. He was a pig on the spit, rammed through from end to end. He understood nothing. But he tried to be quiet. He tried to hold still. The pain went on and on._

.

He awoke to the sound of his own whimpers. He was bathed in sweat. It was dark and cold, and he could not think where he was. His hands ached; they were clenched into fists. His thoughts were jumbled. _Quick, escape before they find me again!_ He half-rose but his body was so sluggish and his mind so exhausted, he did not have strength to get away. He fell back, and though he tried to resist the pull of sleep, he could feel his lids closing and he moaned, knowing it was no use. There was no escape; there would never be any escape-- 

_._

_Afterward, he was ordered to lie in his usual place on the dark stones, and M. Ecrain passed a short chain from his bound wrists to the wall. The return to the cellar had been a pained shuffle. M. Ecrain had praised him but he had not answered._

 _His eyes stung. He felt only sickness and despair. When the chain was pulled taut he groaned and resisted, futilely, in a sullen way. The burning had not diminished and he could think of nothing else. If he had a knife and the use of his hands, he would cut out that part that burned so it was no longer part of him. Better yet, he would simply end himself. He curled on his side with his face toward the wall and kept his eyes closed tight. M. Ecrain was tugging now at the legs of his trousers. He moaned in protest. He drew his knees up to his chest and kept them pressed together. But he was weak and M. Ecrain was strong._

_“Going to wash you up,” said M. Ecrain. “You did well. He’s pleased. But he wants you clean. M. Gisquet will be back soon and they’ll want to see you again. Together; the two of them. They want to help you redeem yourself'; that's all. That's what you long for, isn't it? Forgiveness for your sins.” His trousers were pulled down. The floor was icy and rough beneath his hips. He could only set his face against the corner and pretend he was somewhere else. He heard the slapping sound of water in a bucket. “Assistant for special duties, that’s your new title. Don’t you like it?” A cold wet cloth shoved itself between his thighs and he bit his tongue to keep from whimpering._

_“I remember the day I was first assigned as your partner,” M. Ecrain said. “How lucky! To have a chance to learn from the great man himself. We were assigned to the Marais. You don't remember? No, I suppose you wouldn't. You walked in that morning, Silver Cross on your chest; and I almost pissed myself, that’s how happy I was. I went to introduce myself, and remember what you said? ‘I don't care what your name is. I'm your senior. Just keep your mouth shut and do what I tell you.’ That was all. I obeyed. I was your junior partner. You were the great and mighty Javert.”_

_Knees scraped across the floor. The wet cloth was taken away and his dripping thighs were shoved apart. M. Ecrain pushed himself between them. “Time for another lesson,” he said. "You need practice." His voice was curiously gentle in the dark. "You'll get used to it," he said. Javert could not hold back a small sound. "There, there."_

_Water was streaming freely down his cheeks and the only thing he wanted, besides death, was to free his hands so he could wipe his face dry._

 _But the chains held fast._


	15. the colorful argot of marseilles

Evening came. Javert, after the long walk back from the topmost shelter, stood once more in the center of his quarters. He had not felt refreshed after awakening in the shelter. Now he had made an upsetting discovery, and was pondering what to do about it.

Mme. Chorin had left outside his door both a hearty dinner and his suit, newly laundered. Javert had not noticed how dirty the clothes had been previously, but now after her care, they were three shades lighter and almost spotless. It was a pleasure to trim his whiskers in the glass and then adjust his stock over the crisp collar of his shirt. She was a good woman. However, he was upset because she had clearly gone too far. 

They had made an agreement: in payment for his labor around her house, she would do his washing and mending. However, he noticed that the shirt and coat she returned now fit him better in the shoulders. The trousers, too, had certainly been lengthened, as his boots no longer chafed against his bare ankles. Tailoring had not been part of their bargain whatsoever. She had exceeded her part of the exchange, and he was now in her debt. 

If he had money of his own, he would pay her for her trouble. As he had none, he must offer her the only thing he had of value, namely the labor of his hands. He summoned his resolve and went down to knock at her door.

“M. Javert!” 

He had not expected to see the husband. He had barely met the man in all the weeks he had lived in his house, and he was still uncomfortable with strange eyes boring into him. Nervously, he bowed. “Good evening. I trust you are recovering from your injury. Is Madame Chorin in?”

“Injury?” The lean, pleasant face showed confusion. “Yes, she is in the kitchen. Josephine! M. Javert is here. Well, come in, man; come in.”

Mme. Chorin appeared, wiping her floured hands on a coarse red apron. He had been prepared to confront her directly about the liberty she had taken with his clothes, but her broad smile and evident pleasure at his arrival made him feel wrong-footed. “Monsieur," she exclaimed. "I am glad to see you. Was dinner satisfactory? There is more in the kitchen if you are still hungry. Or is there something else you need?”

“I came to inquire—“ he said. “I came to see-- if perhaps you need any work done tonight about the place. I have brought in the water barrels already and set them outside your door so they will be ready in the morning.”

“You’re a wonder,” said Mme. Chorin. She turned to her husband. “Isn’t he a wonder? Believe me, you have already repaired the entire house. I am almost done preparing the dough for tomorrow's baking. Won’t you stay for a while, and join Pierre and me for a glass of wine?” 

The husband nodded and moved to take him by the elbow, but at his touch Javert shrank back and a spurt of fear quickened his pulse. 

“No— no,” he said. It sounded curt and ungracious, and he colored. He was no good at this; he did not belong in society. A note under the door would have been preferable. She would be insulted now. “I cannot," he said haltingly. "I-- I must go. But, Madame, you will please tell me if I can be of assistance.”

He was glad of the clouds that night. The moon and stars were covered and the night was thick enough to swallow him whole. He retreated quickly down the street, cursing his wrongness, taking pains to walk so softly that he could not hear his own footsteps. 

The snow along the dock had melted in the day’s warmth, but a slick of ice had formed in its place. His feet were cold because the soles of his boots were going. He did not know what to do about it. He must keep wearing them until they fell apart and then he must go barefoot. What choice did he have?

For hours he roamed along the docks. The night grew quiet. His sharp ears picked up two sets of footsteps approaching from the far end of the dirty lane, and he ducked quickly behind a group of pilings slick with algae. As the men grew closer, he recognized the pleasant, rough accent of sailors from the Marseilles region. There were increasing numbers of them lately in Montreuil-sur-Mer. The accent brought back memories of better times, and his heavy mood lightened a little. 

“—woman getting back soon? Been long gone this time.”  
“Aye. A long trip west; harsh weather. But back tomorrow.”  
“Was it the mother after all?”  
“Second sister. The oldest but one. And three younger. They’ll be coming back with her.”  
“Then the wedding—“  
“Went as expected. Turns out the groom was just as happy to stand for the sister only.”  
“So she’ll come in flying the blue-and-red?”  
“Aye.”  
“You’ll want company for her return. A party.”  
“I’ve got hired men. Musicians from up the way. A whole troupe of them.”  
“Tomorrow night.”  
“Tomorrow late, aye.”  
"The thing is set, then." The two clasped hands quickly and parted at the corner.

When they were out of sight Javert detached himself from the pilings. His hands were slick with sea-slime but he didn’t notice. His heart was pounding. 

"A troupe of them," he muttered. "A troupe." He ran his wet hands through his hair. "By the Eternal Father."

His mind was a tumult. The conversation replayed itself word for word in his mind. _Tomorrow,_ they had said - right here, in Montreuil's harbor. He could not believe it. _Tomorrow night. No time to lose._

He felt hot and cold at once - drenched with sweat, and shivering. Had he heard that conversation, or imagined it? He looked to the street where the men had passed, and saw their footprints in the snow. It had been real - and what should he do now? It was, by his estimate, perhaps an hour before midnight. He could see all the events that would follow, as clearly as if he had already stood witness to them. He could see this night pass hour by hour, and then-- Then the sun would rise and cap the sky, and then slide down into the sea as on every other day, And he knew what would happen when darkness returned. He alone knew. And who could he tell? 

He thought of Martel and the partner, who were right now huddled on Tenement Row. His mind went next to the station-house where he had been held after the incident on the docks. He dismissed both these ideas. None of the officers would listen to him. Regardless, they were not reliable and should not be trusted with such vital information. 

That left M. le maire. 

Javert touched his stock. M. Madeleine was a gentleman, and it was not strictly his business to direct the police. On the other hand there was something about him, Javert had lately noticed -- a strong way of moving and a certain animal wariness to him, as if he were a man of decisive action. A good man, Javert suspected, in a fight.

Very well. M. le maire, then.

He hesitated. Really, should he tell anyone? He might be mistaken. He had no right to intervene in police affairs. What had he heard, anyway? Two men talking pleasantly. They were planning to welcome back the one’s woman after a long voyage away. That was all. He was insane to read anything more into it.

No. He knew what he had heard. _Woman flying the blue-and-red. Musicians waiting when she came._

He could find his way to M. Madeleine’s home. He had come across it during past wanderings, recognizing it by the chipped walk and the shining brass knocker of a ram with a ring in its mouth. He could go there now and knock and beg for entrance. But of course M. Madeleine was surely asleep; he would be very angry at being disturbed. 

The safest course was not get involved at all. In a handful of hours the night would end and the first arrows of sunlight would fly in low, skimming into the town, and he would withdraw into the hills and leave Montreuil to its daily round of noise and eyes and commotion. He would throw himself down in the highest hillside shelter and be insensible until late afternoon. He would return after sunset and then he would eat, and perhaps Mme. Chorin would have work for him, so more hours would pass before he was free to slip out into the night. He would not go straight to the docks. It would certainly be very late by the time he reached the waterfront, and whatever happened there would already have set itself in motion. Anyway it was not his place to interfere. M. Ecrain would certainly not like it.

“Respect, obedience, service,” he muttered. 

Too agitated to remain still, he spent the rest of the dark hours pacing restlessly along the alleys by the docks. His mind would not rest. If his feet were still cold, he no longer noticed. 

.

Madeleine, that same night, was sitting at his desk staring pensively out the window. It was long after his usual hour for bed. This was Mme. Voisier's late night, when she caught up on the weeks' cleaning; from the kitchen he could still hear her scrubbing at the broiling-pan and humming one of the toneless lullabies she favored, though her children were grown and gone. In front of him were the two thin letters she had handed him at dinner. He had not yet found the heart to open them. Both had the mark of the Faverolles postal station and he did not have to read them to know what they said. 

He reminded himself that in spite of his current heavy solitude, the day had been fruitful. Early that morning he had stealthily entered a poor home on the Boul’varde St. Onge, and left a heap of coins and notes beside the cold hearth of the widow de Remy. He had debated how much to give her, driving the sum up and up until it was, he supposed, ridiculous. He could feel the Bishop’s eyes on him, however. Every move he made was conducted under those watching eyes, and it took a lot to satisfy them. More and more, it seemed. 

Then he had gone directly to the factory and delivered his decision to the foreman: Henceforth, all sick or injured workers were to receive full pay indefinitely. 

The foreman, naturally, had been aghast. “You realize, Monsieur, that within a week half of your workers will develop sudden consumption? That within a fortnight this factory will be half-empty? and by months’ end all these people – and all your profits -- will be in the care of the barkeep at the Lion d’Argent!” Madeleine had a dark suspicion that the foreman knew the truth of things. He seethed with sudden fury, holding up his hand for silence. Enough! he would not listen. Hadn’t a certain bishop once heaped undeserved riches on an unrepentant thief? Madeleine the penitent could do no less. His soul had been bought for God. 

He set down the letters, still unopened, in the wooden dish where he kept his correspondence. Then he pushed up his sleeves and stared disconsolately at his wrists. 

The wind hissed, and out in the dark a tree branch battered his window. The winter was already a hard one. The poor of the town would suffer. And Javert as well would feel it - Javert who might be out there now in the frigid air, with his flapping coat, tangled hair and filthy hands. Now, of course, he had a stock around his neck, the meagerest of protection against a cutthroat's knife. Most likely he was wandering by the docks even now. He seemed not to understand the danger, or perhaps he simply did not care. 

“Javert,” Madeleine muttered. “Nineteen years, Javert.” He touched his own neck and thought of the iron collar he had worn in the Bagne. He closed his eyes and this time he could not keep the images from rising: the plank and the irons, the brutes he’d fought and beaten down, the curses of men who were no longer quite men, the days he worked through sickness, worked through injuries, worked through every imaginable torment. And always, Javert was there: watching him without seeing him. Javert in his cool blue uniform, striding about so clean and proud and tall with his cudgel held loosely in his hand… 

_“You. You are out of uniform. Where is your cap?”_

_Valjean pointed wearily. It was gone -- fallen into the stinking hole at the worksite over which the men took turns squatting during their work breaks. Javert frowned. “The worth of that cap is 30 sous, paid for by the crown. Have you 30 sous to buy another? No? The you will fetch the one you lost.” He stood with folded arms. The prisoners continued their work with pick and shovel. They were listening, but they kept their eyes carefully averted._

_He hesitated a fraction too long. He saw the cudgel swing up and leapt to do as he'd been ordered-- and by then, of course, it was too late. Ribs on fire, he stumbled to the hole. Every breath drilled his side like a ship’s spike being driven into his flesh. He could see the cap down there in the filth -- a little red boat tipping sideways, half its brim sunk already under the morass. The stench was enough to make him gag. But he was a beast, and a beast must follow orders. Lying down alongside the hole, he winced as he stretched his arm down into it. Javert’s boots tramped up beside him and took a wide firm stance. “Too far to reach? Pity. Then you will have to climb in.”_

_Holding his breath and trying to set aside his agony, he strained until his fingers closed on the filthy bit of cloth. He climbed unsteadily to his feet, drawing his breath in between his teeth for he was near to vomiting and had to fight to keep control of his heaving stomach. The cap dripped muck. All the men were watching now, though from the corners of their eyes. “The water-station,” he muttered, jerking his chin toward the dented barrel at the other end of the worksite. “I’ll wash it, Monsieur. Take only a minute.”_

_Javert turned to all the men. “Listen, all of you. I tell you this: profligacy and carelessness have made you slaves and, unless you improve, will keep you slaves forever.” He swung on Valjean. “You’ve wasted enough time, you. You won’t waste more. Put it on now. And return to work.”_

In the confines of his office, gone cold now because the hour was so late and the fire dim, Madeleine leaped up and paced angrily. He still could not accept that Javert had not intended cruelty; that the blows and humiliation and been intended to correct him and improve his lot. Ridiculous. The bishop's mercy, not the guards' beatings, had set him on the path of virtue. He wanted to shout this at Javert and shake him until his teeth rattled and he understood.

Behind him, the door banged open and Mme. Voisier, broom in hand, gave a start when she saw him. “So sorry, Monsieur! I thought you were in bed! I came to set things in order and put out the lamp.” He had been so lost in his thoughts that for one blank moment he merely stared at her. Then, recalling himself, he gasped and yanked down his sleeves.

“It’s all right,” he said quickly, waving her off. “I’ll turn off the lamp when I retire.” 

He broke into a sweat after she was gone. His scars were faded but still visible, and anyone who saw them would know instantly of his shameful past. He was becoming careless. The first months in Montreuil, he had never stopped looking over his shoulder. But he had not felt any threat of discovery in years -- other than that one terrifying moment in the Paris headquarters when he first encountered Javert. 

No, not that was not quite true. He had prickled with fear just the other night, at Mme. Chorin's. It was just after he buckled the stock on Javert, and the man had turned suddenly and given him an odd look.

Javert was no longer the slack-faced dullard Madeleine had led out of Paris. According to the officers at the station-house, he had fought like a killer in the alley. He wandered in the night like a wild creature. Yet he was unstable - Madeleine could not erase the memory of Javert trembling on his knees beside the shattered mug -- and his thoughts were unknowable. One day he might look up and rearrange the pieces of Madeleine, so that they came together in the correct way. Then Javert would recognize the convict from Toulon.

_I deny it. I am not Valjean. That man is gone. And yet-- I long to be that man again. To be the brother of Jeanne and the son of Gaspard; to speak aloud the precious names of Michel, Marie, Jacques, Jean, petit-Gaspard, Sylvie, Antoine, Charlotte. To be my own self: Jean Valjean of Faverolles._

He should avoid Javert as much as possible, and give him no more chances to look hard into the face of M. le maire. This would not be hard. Mme. Chorin would see to Javert's basic needs; there was no good reason for Madeleine to call on him or associate with him. After all, the man did not even want any of the things Madeleine had tried to give him – not clothes or gifts or money. The things he did want were things Madeleine shrank from: the black knapsack, the whip. It would be wisest to stay away.

But there was the other side to it. There was the glow he'd felt when Javert lifted the stock from its wrappings and his face lit up with fragile joy. There was the ache Madeleine had begun to feel when he thought of Javert. He could not explain it to himself. He wanted to see more of the man; that was the strange truth. 

Perhaps he would return to the Chorins' house after all. After all, he had nothing to fear from Javert. The man had been carefully, brutally trained to see no wrong in his superiors.

Madeleine pushed up his sleeves again and rubbed his scars. _Look at these, Javert. Do you not recognize them and remember? The great iron gates. The deafening noise of the shipyard. The chains, the misery; the life I lived that you were part of. Look at me! Look harder!_


	16. a wolf stirs

Early the following morning, Madeleine was back at the mairie. He sat at his desk and surveyed the stacks of documents in front of him.

The room was not grand. It had belonged to a junior functionary during the tenure of the previous mayor. The luxurious office of his predecessor, with its gleaming mahogany desk and its floor inlaid with gilt tiles, now gathered dust down the hall. He had not become mayor so he could surround himself with palatial accoutrements and fawning assistants. He was here to benefit his town and elevate his soul. 

He was quite tired, having woken frequently throughout the night with troubled thoughts and memories of long ago. Now fatigue made him feel old. Had it really been only four years since he’d come from Digne? Strange that it seemed, at times, much longer.

A knock at the door diverted his thoughts. The timid tap of knuckles was the calling-card of his assistant, Robert. “Enter.”

The door opened. “Monsieur le maire, there is a man… He is rather... Well, he says he knows you. He is asking for an audience.”

“I am not busy. Show him in, Robert. Thank you.”

Robert stepped nervously aside. Madeleine gaped in amazement. Behind him loomed the tall figure of Javert. 

Javert looked somewhat improved from their last meeting. His clothes now fit him decently and were cleaner than when he had last seen them - surely thanks to Mme. Chorin - but his matted hair still lay against his forehead and streaks of slime covered the front of his coat. What could he be doing here? The man was agitated in his mind; that much was clear. He was twisting his hands together in front of him and his eyes darted from side to side. He was almost trembling. 

_He remembers,_ Madeleine realized with a horrified lurch of his stomach. _He knows who I am. What else? He has come to denounce me._

He had never dared to imagine what would happen at the moment of his unmasking. But now that it had come, all he could think of, with a clutching empty feeling, was that he had let everyone down. With a flash of prescience he saw all that lay before him: disgrace, the trial, the collar once more around his neck, the rumble of the wagons sweeping him away like refuse to his miserable end. 

Well: a man must be a man.

He rose slowly. “Thank you, Robert." he said quietly. "That will be all.”

As they stood alone facing each other across Madeleine’s desk, there was a moment when neither of them spoke. Finally Madeleine broke the silence. “All right. Say what you've come to say.”

Javert looked down at the floor. He hands were tightly clenched and mottled red and white. Without raising his head he said, all in a rush, “There is to be a police action tonight on the docks. Five officers will be on hand to meet a boat of smugglers bringing in cargo from a Portuguese ship at anchor.” He looked up then. There was a terrible intensity in his gaze. “They must be warned. It's not what they think. Five will not be enough.” Then he bowed jerkily and hurried out the door.

Madeleine was, for a moment, too stupefied to react. His mind worked over the strange speech, turning it and trying to make sense of it. Javert was far down the hall when he finally recovered his voice. “Wait! Javert!” The other man stopped. He turned in a slow rotation, and they stood like that, the two of them: as still as bookends with the length of the hall between them. “Come back,” Madeleine said. “Come explain yourself.” Javert hesitated for a moment. Then he returned, still walking with stiff hesitancy as if pulled forward on a string, against his will. 

“What do you mean by this?” Madeleine asked.

Javert shifted from foot to foot. “It’s what I said. The foe they’ll face is more than they expect. Five men won’t be enough.”

“But -- how could you know?”

“I am out in the night. I-- I hear things.”

“You're not making sense. I don't understand. Who are these smugglers? What do you know of them?”

“They are a branch of a Marseilles gang,” Javert muttered. “I came up against some of their number in Paris.”

“Javert. You are serious, aren’t you? Stop standing by the door as if you mean to bolt. If this is true, it’s a grave matter.”

“Yes. Forgive me, Monsieur. I did not know who else to tell.”

“Sit down, I said. Where did you hear this? I know nothing about any police action planned tonight. Smuggling? You must tell me more. Tell me all that you know.”

In fits and starts, Javert told his story. Madeleine listened in amazement. Was Javert to be believed? This was the same man he had seen not long ago, wild-eyed and cowering in the police station-house. He was a half-mad creature - yet he claimed to know the secrets of the city's underworld, and he knew the plans of the police far better than the mayor did.

“Why would smugglers be coming here?” he asked in confusion. “Why not land at Marseilles, as they must be accustomed to doing?”

“Well, it's... The tariffs, monsieur le maire. Raised two years ago to support the treasury. Tobacco, silk, feathers, many items. The crown began sending regiments to Marseilles and other ports to search foreign ships for smugglers' goods. In Paris we used to speak of it – that the gangs would soon be spreading out to the smaller ports where the police presence was less. Montreuil-sur-Mer is well-placed to receive ships from the west, and the road between here and Paris is not closely watched.”

Deluded he might be, Madeleine thought. But there was sense to what he said. “And supposing this is true. What do you propose our police do?”

Javert did not answer.

"Javert. What do you think they should do?"

"Are you-- asking my opinion, Monsieur?"

"Yes. Of course. You have brought the matter up; you must have some ideas of your own."

After a reluctant pause, Javert brought forth an answer. "I think -- they must make a strong stand, Monsieur. Tonight. If this shipment enters unchallenged, there will be no end of future trouble for the city.”

Madeleine frowned. Then, swiftly, he took from his desk a blank page, penned a few words, folded it, and set his seal upon it. “Take this to the station-house,” he told Javert. “Do you remember the address - it is where you were taken on the night-- the night you fought those men on the docks. The street is Rue de la Troienne. The chief inspector of police is a man named Magritte. Show him this and he’ll listen to you. Can you do that?” 

Javert’s mouth worked soundlessly. Finally he said in a low tight voice. “I thought-- Would you not prefer to tell him yourself, monsieur?”

“I will speak with him later. But he should hear this first from your lips – one officer to another. And it is you who knows the details.” It was best. Let the police chief decide if Javert was a lunatic. If so, Magritte would send him on his way – kindly, Madeleine hoped - and no harm done. 

Javert did not look happy, but he took the letter. “Yes, Monsieur,” he muttered.

“Good.” He had a sudden misgiving. “Javert, listen. If this is true, you must not wander on the docks tonight.” Javert bowed and departed. He had a fearful cornered look - the same one he'd worn a few days before, when Madeleine suggested he go to work training the young officers. 

After he left, Madeleine stared for a long time at the documents in front of him, but his mind was not on his work.

.

Magritte turned out to be a big square man. Javert had seen him before, turning in to the station-house at dawn. He had taken note of his face but hadn’t realized he was the chief of police. He had seen him, also, walking among the taverns a few times on Friday nights. Once, on a particularly fair evening, he had come strolling down the Avenue de la Reine beside a kind-faced woman of slight build -- his wife, Javert had assumed, based on the comfortable familiarity with which they ignored each other. 

Magritte, on seeing the seal of the mayor, took Javert into his office where he read the letter twice. His big face was florid when he looked up. His stare pricked Javert all over in a deep and agonizing way. If on a clear night stars became needles, and every needle drove down from the firmament to lodge beneath his skin, this is how it would feel. 

He tried to bear it. He must bear it. M. Madeleine had ordered him here, and he had no choice. 

“How would you come to know anything,” Magritte said, “about the plans of the police? What exactly do you know, anyway?”

Javert reported the plans for the police action. He named the five officers who would be on the docks.

“Who told you this? Was it one of my men?” 

“N- not intentionally, Chief Inspector. I overheard talk.”

The chief inspector let out a low stream of curses. “And so which of my idiots has been flapping his lips around town? Never mind; whoever it is will answer for it once we’ve settled this business.” He tapped the letter. “And you have information about the ship that’s coming in. Is that right?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Because you heard more talk, I suppose." He sneered. "You must spend a lot of time listening at keyholes! Yet M. le maire wants me to hear you out. So. How do you come by your information?”

Magritte was in a tight-lipped rage. Javert stuttered as he launched into his explanation, knowing he was making a bad impression. Fumblingly, he told of the two men he’d seen walking in the night, using the street-language of the Marseilles underworld. The wife coming home from the wedding, her sisters with her. Traveling under Portuguese colors.

“And musicians,” Magritte said. “Who are they -- these musicians?”

“Men from the Marseilles gangs, low in the organization -- the youths and the stupid ones -- who hire out as paid fighters. They are ruthless, monsieur. They have no reason not to be, since capture means execution.”

“This says” – Magritte tapped M. Madeleine’s letter – “that you were a police inspector in Paris. For how long?”

“Eighteen years, Monsieur.”

“You have experience with major police actions.” Javert nodded. “And you’ve come up against these Marseilles gangs before."

"Yes."

"And now you are here in Montreuil as a guest of M. le maire.”

Javert did not think ‘guest’ was the proper word; it implied familiarity and honor that he had no claim to. After some thought he said, “I am here at M. Madeleine’s pleasure.”

The chief inspector drummed his fingers on the desk and chewed his lip. “And my five men, the best I’ve got—“

“They will be killed.”

“You are sure.” The chief inspector's eyes were going over him. Surely his flaws and his history of treachery were written plainly in his features, even if M. Madeleine had forgotten to detail them in his note. Javert waited, head down, and tried to keep his legs from shaking. He would be ordered out, of course, like a cur. 

“Sit, _Inspector,”_ said Magritte finally. He put a mocking spin on the word. Then he gestured to the empty chair across from his desk. “We have plans to make, and not much time.”


	17. torn

The winter sun was bright and near its zenith when Javert made his way home. He was exhausted. The long night's patrol, the confusion and excitement, and the past hours at the station house had all joined to sap every drop of his limited strength. In daylight, the bustle of the streets oppressed him; he longed to escape into the solace of the hills. However, a glance into the north at their dark hulks looming in the distance was enough to make him lose his courage. For once he would go to his quarters and attempt to rest there, in the corner where his blanket waited. 

At first, Magritte had questioned him roughly, suspiciously, as one would treat a captured informant. “Tell me," he barked. "since you claim expertise. Who is likely to bring the goods ashore? The Portuguese or the Marseilles gangsters?”

“The Marseillesais." His nerves were strung tight, and Magritte's gaze was fierce and unyielding. He did his best to measure up. "The ship captain-- the captain will have been paid for transport only and will not chance his own seamen on a risky landing. The Marseilles men will launch from the docks and go out to load the boats and make sure they are not being cheated. The oarsmen will go well-armed. Likely they’ll leave the hirelings -- the musicians – on shore, to give them cover as they return and unload the goods. That's when they're most vulnerable. In larger cities they face a threat not just from gendarmes, but also rival gangs who might be on hand to relieve them of their prize. See here,” he continued, pointing at the crude drawing of the docks that Magritte had sketched. “Behind the salt-house. You might front the attack from this location, Monsieur l'Inspecteur. Your men will have good cover as they advance.”

Magritte nodded. "Agreed." His manner remained brusque but less hostile. He fired off more questions in rapid succession. How many men should be expected? What arms would they carry? It was becoming clear to Javert that although the chief inspector had not been involved in major actions in this seaside town, he had an astute understanding of tactics and strategy for this type of street-fighting. He had been a military man before joining up with the police. “Also, we must not move on them until the goods are unloaded on the shore, else the bastards will jump back in their boats and row out to the ship for shelter. But they’re sure to have wagons and horses waiting near the Rue de l'Havre. We can outstrip their flank if we put a second group here -- behind the old Verre d’Or.”

“The burned-out building across from the last dock?” Javert asked. “Yes - that is good - the back wall will provide protection. But the most dangerous moment of the engagement will be the first: as soon as your officers announce themselves and charge, the shooting will begin. You will need a man with nerve to lead them.” At Magritte’s look, Javert shook his head. “You know it cannot be you. You will have to command from behind as the battle develops.”

Magritte thought. “Martel,” he said. “He’s experienced; ten years a soldier in his younger days. He won’t waver. He and his partner can be at the vanguard.”

“I think not." Javert lifted his gaze and met the other man's squarely for the first time. "Martel is not good for it and his partner is worth even less. Boudrillard is your man.”

“Boudrillard! He is fifty, and lamed by a bad knee. And what do you know of him or Martel – of any of them?”

“Boudrillard has a heart for fighting. Martel, whatever his past, does not.”

“And exactly how long have you been spying on my men?” His sharp eyes bored into Javert.

Javert shrugged. All at once, he was no longer afraid of Magritte’s eyes. In fact, he could not imagine why he had felt any fear before. He was where he belonged: in a police station-house, with a map in front of him and the rising blood of anticipated danger. He and the chief inspector were two seasoned men preparing to stand against an onslaught. Any differences between them were rendered meaningless by the upcoming fight and by all they had in common. They were like two countrymen coming across each other by chance in a distant land, each delighted to hear at long last his mother tongue. In Magritte Javert recognized a man hard and pragmatic, devoid of sentiment, much like himself. He was surprised to feel a gruff admiration for him. Based on the slovenly ways of Montreuil's police, he had assumed their chief inspector would be worthless or corrupt. Now he revised his judgment: Magritte was a good man stuck in a provincial backwater, who had done his best with the poorly trained, undisciplined men under his command. 

“You should hold the high ground – here, in the waste-yard off the Rue des Poissons. It overlooks the west end of the docks and there is no obstruction to the line of sight. Put two good marksmen there and you will be able to pick off targets on the run and herd the fleeing scoundrels toward your rear defenses.”

At this, Magritte shook his head. “I have no men I’d trust to hit only what they were aiming at, at such a distance. Nor can I be the one.” He held up his right hand. It was missing the third and fourth fingers. “You?”

“I—“ Javert stopped. He had never thought of being there among the officers when the battle began. He would have liked to watch from hiding, if M. Madeleine had not ordered him to stay away. But to take his place among the others? Impossible. It was not a place for him. “I-- cannot. I will not be present tonight.”

“What! We will need every man. You have said it yourself.”

“I am not one of your men,” he said. “I tell you, I will not be there.” 

“Why not?” Magritte’s face closed up. Just like that, their momentary comradeship was broken, and now he regarded Javert narrowly. When he spoke again, his sneer had returned. “And after all, what is your business in Montreuil? An inspector from Paris who spies about in the night - and is not known to the legitimate police, and will not take part in our fight! Why did M. Madeleine bring you here? Did he know a night like this was coming to Montreuil’s shores? Or – is my force under suspicion of something, so that you were sent to watch us?”

“It is neither. I was sent, by order of M. le Prefet Gisquet, to serve M. Madeleine.” 

The words, as he said them, jarred him to his senses. He was a disgraced man. Ecrain's sharp voice slashed through his mind. He had forgotten himself - he had no right to sit as the Chief Inspector's equal. Feeling faint, he clutched the desk as he stood up. 

“Forgive me, Monsieur. You’ll want to bring your men into the station-house now, all of them. Perhaps-- perhaps you might review the plan and the layout of the docks. Drill them. Then, if you please, get them into place just after nightfall. I would humbly suggest that they arrive by ones and twos in plain clothes, weapons hidden, so as not to draw attention.”

Magritte saw him out. He was sullen and watchful now. 

At the door, Javert turned. There was one more thing and it must be said. “Monsieur - there is a small hospital beside the church, is there not? How many are on hand to tend it in the night?” 

“One nursing sister,” said Magritte. He nodded curtly. “Yes. I will see to that.” 

.

Naked -- so as not to bleed on the clothes Mme. Chorin had taken pains over -- he took up the whip. The noonday sun had been too bright as he’d slipped through the streets to the Chorin house. He’d kept his head down and the coat pulled tight around him. 

He was continuing to slip. His arrogance in the office of the chief inspector was his worst crime yet. He squirmed: had he actually dared give opinions on the most important type of police business, as if a man like him had any right? The bite of the lash against his bent back gave him only momentary respite. The whip’s power over him had been diminishing these past weeks. He was forgetting everything he’d been taught, and the call of his past – his disobedient and disloyal former self that he had fought so hard to vanquish – was growing louder. 

He was too lenient on himself. That was why he was slipping. If M. Ecrain were here—

Slowly he turned the whip around in his hand. Now the rounded butt of the handle jutted out from his fist. It was smooth black leather, the thickness of a man’s two thumbs together. 

_If M. Ecrain were here--_

He eased his legs apart. 

.

Afterward, he had to wash; there was a rule. _Clean him up,_ M. Gisquet had said in the beginning. _Get him some clothes. I don’t want him stinking of come every time I have him._ The rag, soft and wet, used to slide in and out between his thighs as he lay chained again in the dark cellar; it caressed him like the worst obscenity while he was helpless to keep it out. M. Ecrain’s words were soft and wet too, and equally irresistible. 

He did not want to wash. His body at close range repulsed him with its vulnerability and all its secret crevices that could not defend themselves. It was not part of him, he told himself. It was simply a body and it served a purpose and that was all. It did its work and it conducted pain; these things were necessary. But he could not stand to touch it. 

Still. There was a rule.

In the past few days Mme. Chorin had taken to delivering a basin of warm water with his meal each evening. “For bathing,” she had said offhandedly. He never used it. Today as always, the basin was there waiting. He dipped his hand into it and with great distaste poured a palmful of water over his low back, its soft caress making him grimace as it dribbled over his wounded flesh. He forced himself to do it again. When he put his hand in the basin, the water turned cloudy. For the first time he noticed the dirt on his hands and the crescents of black beneath his fingernails. 

M. Lemois, who had taught him that a boy's future was made or broken by such things, would wonder how he could have fallen so far.

He plunged them into the basin and scrubbed until they were raw and pink. He could not tolerate touching the rest of his body, but his hands were different - perhaps because they were accustomed to contact with the world. After he dressed, he used his small barber’s scissors to cut his nails to the quick. 

The hills still beckoned but his fatigue called more loudly. He lay on the floor beside the wall, drawing the meager blanket over him. He set his head down on his crossed arms, and let sleep carry him away. 

.

_Burning._  
_Burning hole, all that you are._  
_Didn’t fight them._  
_Let them do that to you. Like a dog on a bitch. Did what they wanted and you let them._  
_Men I once looked up to. Now I'm better off dead. Nothing to believe in. Nothing else left._

.

_But suppose. Suppose Ecrain were right. That this is no more than justice. That Mssrs. Chabouillet and Gisquet are good and noble men. Then everything is still as I believed it._  


_Suppose I was wrong in my suspicions. They are good men; it is I who am at fault. Who am stubborn and proud. Who dared accuse the good men above me._ _A man who does wrong should admit fault and take his punishment._  
_And then - with punishment - the man is improved. He returns to the straight path. This is what we tried to teach the prisoners at Toulon._  
_A man can redeem himself that way._  
_It was for my own good, then; this violation. I just could not see it. I am suffering what the prisoners at Toulon suffered. In their blind corruption they could not see that we guards meant only to steer them back toward righteousness._  


_It will get easier. M. Ecrain promised._  
_He called me the assistant for special duties. A necessary position, serving my betters._  
_I wronged them, and so it is their right to deal with me as they see fit._  
_It is only justice._  


_That is the answer. Now everything makes sense. My superiors are correct, and I-- I have been a traitor, and I must-- I must do better--_


	18. heroes

Valjean sat cross-legged on the ground with a rifle across his knees. As a young man he could bring down a deer at almost a hundred meters; in Faverolles that had been his fame and his pride. When he returned in darkness with meat slung across his shoulders, his sister’s oldest, Michel, used to follow him out to the shed with his eyes shining. The boy would hand him the old skinning knife and he would take it without a word, pretending not to notice his nephew's breathless awe. “Was it dangerous?" Michel would burst out at last, while he worked efficiently with his knife along the flanks of the carcass, turning it to strip the hide from the flesh. "Did the Duke’s men see you on his land? Will they be looking for you?”

“No. I’m too quick.” 

“Did you get it with just one shot?"

"Yes."

"When will I be old enough to go with you, uncle?”

“Can’t waste the powder on you.” 

Gruffness came easily to him. A taciturn youth, he’d grown into a sullen man. He liked the still of dusk in the quiet forest when a doe put herself in his sights and the trees leaned in around him. But he never told Michel that even better than those enchanted moments in the forest, was this: his sister's embrace, the boy's eager delight, the hours in the shed when he dressed the meat under the glow of a lamp and Michel leaned close, watching and asking too many questions. 

Tonight, however, it was a different hunt that brought him out.

Magritte had come to the mairie earlier, as ordered, to make his report. He believed Javert - a fact that still filled Madeleine with wonder and unease at Javert's prescience and nocturnal movements. The smugglers were expected to arrive in force, Magritte had said. There would be a fight on the docks; it would happen late and it would be dangerous. He was bringing all his men into the fray. He had put the doctor on notice.

Madeleine could not stay home on a night like this. It would be wrong to wake in the morning, and go out to count the bodies of the slain and console their families, and reflect that while they had been dying he had been asleep in bed. He told himself that was why he was going to the docks. The other reason -- that he had not been out in the quiet of the night with a gun since he was a young man -- may have been the stronger one. He would never again poach deer on the summer estate of the Duc d'Orleans and return with food for his hungry little ones, not anymore -- but tonight he would like to remember how it had felt. 

He'd slipped through the alleys like an old thief. He found an inconspicuous place for himself, away from the dock but on a rise from which he could survey the fight and, if necessary, come to the aid of any injured man. The rise was near the fish-processing house off the Rue des Poissons, and it stank almost as badly in the winter night as it did in summer’s heat. Madeleine rubbed his hands together to keep them warm. He blew out puffs of frosty breath, and waited. Below him on the Rue de l’Havre, men were sauntering from tavern to tavern, some with other men, some with women, some alone. He watched men clap each other's shoulders in greeting, or kiss, or share laughter as they formed and re-formed themselves in shifting clumps and knots of camaraderie. The city had a life of its own at night. He sat above, alone, watching. 

As the hours passed, the revelers melted away. Eventually the streets were empty and quiet. He touched the rifle. A nervous happiness sang through him. Surely it would not be long.

Hours crept by. 

Nothing happened.

Then, just as his eyes drooped, a little froth of activity roiled the shore. There were men down there, he saw, slipping onto the docks. They had no lanterns with them but he could follow their movements because they blotted out the reflected moonlight that lit the water. He was too far away to hear anything. He could not tell how many there were. But not long after, he heard the scrape and splash of a large rowboat shoving off the docks, and then the thud of oars, and its dark shape glided away. A second boat moved off in the wake of the first. The two moved out to sea, their oars striking gray peaks to both sides of the gunwhales. In the deep waters of the channel, Madeleine saw, a large ship waited at anchor. Only a few flickers of light from the aft decks revealed its presence.

In minutes the rowboats were far enough away that he could see nothing of them on the water, except figments created by his straining eyes. He waited with growing impatience. Where were the boats? When would the thing begin? Then he cocked his head towards a new sound in the night. Hoofbeats. Many horses. And wagon wheels rolling. A dark stain emerged along the far end of the street, and as it approached it separated into smaller stains, each of which took shape as it drew closer: horses, wagons, men. And the men were carrying arms.

He was so busy studying them and trying to figure out their numbers, that he missed the rowboats' return to dock until the oarsmen had leapt out onto solid ground. More activity followed: figures bending; sacks or boxes being lifted out of the boats and set on the shore. Still he could hear nothing. He blew on his hands. 

Then:

“Halt!" 

From behind the salt-house, at a dead run, a phalanx of dark-garbed men swooped down towards the docks. "Police of Montreuil-sur-Mer! Put up your hands and do not move!” A lone curse answered, and the men on the docks seemed to crouch and pull together, tensing like a spring. The officers continued to charge. As the man in the lead closed to within firing range, he shouted out a ribald challenge to the smugglers and then waved his men down, urging them to take cover behind a fleet of salt-barrels. The officers dove for safety. Madeleine heard a shot-- saw a flash-- and, like glass shattering under a hammer, the night burst apart into a thousand shards. From near the wagons came a burst of flame and gunfire; the officers answered with a thundering volley; and then the docks boiled over. All around, shouts and screams erupted - gunshots; oaths; horses neighing in terror and rearing against their tethers; a tumult of dark shapes crashing against each other in the melee. Men were running, and firing as they ran. He could not tell the officers from the smugglers. Somewhere in the dark a man was screaming in agony.

Madeleine leaped up and began running towards the docks. He was not thinking, merely running, because he had a rifle in his hands and the instinct of an armed man is to join a fight. As he ran, he set his plans. _Find a sheltered place near the action. If any man falls, drag him to safety. If an officer’s life is threatened, take aim at the smuggler but try not to kill: aim for the leg; only go for the killing shot if no other is open._ He burst out onto the Rue de l’Havre and quickly scrambled down below the low wall that fronted Le Palais, the tawdriest of the city’s taverns. As he tried to get his bearings, he could hear gunshots, the pound of boots against the stones, and harsh shouts of a running battle. Close by in the frigid darkness, he heard a man’s voice call out suddenly. “By Christ,” the man groaned. “Oh-- by Christ-- someone. Someone! I am hit!”

Madeleine ran out in a half-crouch into the street. He had his gun clutched in his right hand and he swung his gaze wildly from side to side. “I’m coming,” he said in a low urgent cry. “Where are you? Keep calling out; I’m coming to you!” A blasphemous oath answered him, and then a groan. The center of the battle had moved off down the street - the crack of gunfire and shouts continued, but were now some ways off. He made his way towards the sound of the nearby voice. “Where? Where are you?” He was terrified. A man was bleeding in the dark. He was alone, and only he could save the injured man. The darkness was almost absolute. He did not know the docks well and he was dizzied by his blindness and fear. He was lost, and so was the fallen man, and they could not reach each other. He whirled to peer back the way he’d come. Then his foot struck something solid and he pitched forward over a hulking form that lay like a dropped sack on the edge of the gutter. His hands and knees struck the cobbles and he cried out in pain. Then he heard another obscene utterance, right beside him, ringing out louder than his own voice. He crawled closer and recognized the hulk for a man. 

“Can you stand?” he asked breathlessly. “Where are you hurt?”

“By Christ,” the man groaned. “Someone. Please.”

Madeleine slung the rifle behind him and threw his arms around the man’s chest, hoisting him up. He heaved him over his shoulder and, staggering under the weight, began to carry him along the edge of the street. But where to take him? The gun battle was still raging in the distance. The hospital was far. The priest slept. The man groaned and cursed more terribly with every step he took. 

Carefully he set his burden down and crouched at his side. The man lay limp. Harsh grunting breaths now issued from his throat. “Can you hear me?” Madeleine cried. There was no answer, only a choking gurgle and the rushed grunts that came with every gasp. “Can I pray for you?” He must pray. The man was in extremis and he should hear the lord's comfort as he passed away. But Madeleine's mind had gone blank and he could not think of any words. Thinking to grip the man's hand in the dark, he found his chest instead. It was wet and the ribs shuddered in and out.

The man’s grunts were growing weaker. A prayer, quickly! “Holy Father--” he began, but he could not think of what came next. “Holy Mary, mother of God--” 

The man dragged in a long, tormented breath, and let out something like a sob.

A prayer-- any prayer-- 

When he was a boy they used to sit on two benches at the wooden trestle table in the kitchen, which was always the warmest room in their cottage: he beside Jeanne, and his father across from him. There was always a sense of imbalance, of things out of order, until his mother joined them. She would come away from the fire holding the bowl of stew steaming between her hands and her worn cheeks would lift as she set it down in front of them. She’d take her place on the bench beside his father and then she'd smile at him across the table, a smile that was like a secret. Then they’d bow their heads, all four of them, while his father said the words. 

Madeleine gripped the man’s shirt-front. “Our blessed Father,” he choked. “Our blessed Father, for the fruits and blessings of Thy creation, we make ready our hearts in gratitude.”

The man drew in another groaning breath. Then he was silent. Under Madeleine's hand, his chest moved no more. 

At that moment, he heard a new sound: rapid footfalls from up the street in the darkness, quick and light: the sound of a man running towards him. He strained his eyes, but the moon was covered once more and he might have been eyeless for all that he could see. He lunged to his feet. “Who’s that?” he growled, gripping his rifle. “Stop where you are!” The footsteps did not slow as the beat the cobbles in a hard unbroken rhythm. They kept coming, kept coming, louder and louder - and though Madeleine could see nothing he could imagine the onrushing shape of a criminal bearing down on him. He raised his weapon and steeled himself. Finally the outline of the man became visible against the darkness. He was closing quickly, panting as he came. The moon broke free of its cloud-cover, and Madeleine saw that the running man's face had a twisted scar down the left cheek and a dirty scruff of beard. He took aim, steady and true, at the man's chest, for if he were going to shoot then the time must be now-- 

_Let him come._ The Bishop's voice was stern. _You need not fear. Have I not bought your soul for God?_

Madeleine paused, the rifle-butt firm against his shoulder, his finger on the trigger.

The runner did not slow. Madeleine, trembling, remained poised to shoot. Thoughts rushed through him. He thought of the factory, the townspeople, the papers waiting on his desk, the widow huddling by her broken window, the ragged children of the city, all reaching out their empty hands to clutch at the hem of his coat. He saw the faces, long-lost, of his sister, his mother, and Michel. 

His arms went limp. He lowered his rifle.

Still the runner rushed on.

He should seek cover, of course; he should not stand up like this, a target in the street carrying a gun he would not use. The runner, if he were armed, was within pistol-range now. But Madeleine felt no fear. The dark shape of the fallen man at his feet looked calm now. That man's struggles were over. He was sleeping the way only an innocent could sleep: out in the open, fearless as a child in this dangerous place. The fallen slumberer was Madeleine's to protect. He would not leave his charge. He stepped forward, holding the lowered rifle easily in one hand. The sounds of fighting and occasional gunfire had receded into the distance. The air smelled of salt. He did not feel the cold anymore. As the runner barreled towards him, he was almost smiling - watching the handsome gleam of silver in the sudden moonlight - a silver pistol in the moonlight - now raised in the man’s hands--

A snarl, close by his ear, tore him from his reverie. The attacker cried out and lurched wildly sideways, crashing to the ground. His weapon skidded over the stones and into the gutter. Madeleine could not understand what had happened. Something huge and dark was crouched atop the man, worrying at his throat; a wild animal snarling in fury, pinning the man to the ground, then thrusting him over, face-down, then driving a knee against his back— 

But no; not an animal, not exactly an animal-- it was a man—

.

Afterwards he was shaky. 

“Javert. By God.” That was all he could think to say.

“Monsieur le maire. Are you hurt?” Javert was still on the ground, his knee firmly planted in the back of Madeleine’s attacker. The man was grunting and cursing in pain, for Javert had both his wrists imprisoned and was twisting his arms behind his back in a practiced hold, as if it took him little effort.

“I— do not think so. No. Are you?”

“No, Monsieur.”

“Javert.” He had been so calm while the man sped toward him. Now he felt faint and he thought he would surely die from the pounding of his heart, which would not slow itself. He sat down weakly. He was bathed in a cold sweat.

From up the street came the voices of men: staccato commands, the stamp of hooves. The chaotic and desperate cries of earlier, however, had ceased. So had the gunfire. “It is over,” said Javert.

Madeleine, for a moment, could not understand what he meant. Then he remembered. “And who won?”

“That is the voice of Chief Inspector Magritte ordering the roundup and loading of the prisoners. He must be at the Verre d’Or. His men did not do badly.”

“It is really over?”

“Mostly. Though there is no way to tell, just now, how many of these criminals escaped.” He got up, yanking the captive up to his feet as well. “I must join the others, Monsieur, and give this prisoner into their custody. Then, if you'll allow me, I will see you home. Will you come this way?”

Madeleine hesitated. He looked down at the body behind him - a shape in the darkness only, a man with no name lying alone in the street. “There is someone here,” he muttered. “I cannot leave him by himself.” 

Javert came closer, pushing his man in front of him. He peered down at the body. Then he cursed. “A loss,” he grunted. He stood there a moment as if there were more he might say. Finally, he turned away.

“Then he’s one of the officers? Do you know him?”

“Boudrillard is his name. He led the attack. He is the reason it succeeded.” Javert spoke roughly. He gave his captive a vicious shove so that the man cried out in pain. “After I have this one put in irons, I’ll have them send a wagon to take his body home.”

“There is no need for that,” said Madeleine. He crouched and lifted the man, as he had done earlier. But earlier he had not known where to carry him and now he had no such confusion, as there was only one journey left to Boudrillard and one destination. “Come,” said Madeleine. He hoisted his burden higher, the dead man's arms and legs swaying gently as Madeleine cradled him, and set off up the street toward the ruins of the Verre d’Or.

.

Magritte, looking flushed and weary, was standing in the light of a single lamp that flickered on a low stone wall. He was overseeing the manacled prisoners, nearly two dozen of them, as they were prodded into wagons by a line of grim-faced officers. He exclaimed in surprise as Madeleine approached. “M. le maire! What brings you out here?” Then his eyes fell on Madeleine's burden.

“One of your officers,” said Madeleine. “My regrets.” He did not know what to say.

Magritte came close. He put his hand on the limp shoulder of Boudrillard and gazed a long while into his face, just as Javert had done. Finally he looked up, but not at Madeleine. Into the circle of ochre lamplight came Javert, just arriving, pushing his captive ahead of him. "You were right," Magritte addressed him. "He led the charge well; he didn’t hesitate.”

Javert nodded. Nothing more was said, but both men bent their heads in a moment of silence. Perhaps they were praying. Madeleine, watching, had the sense he was intruding on a ritual not meant for his eyes. 

One of the other officers showed him a wagon where two other corpses already lay. Carefully he set the man, Boudrillard, down beside them. Other men stepped up close to the wagon and they, too, looked down at the body without speaking. To the side, an officer was bent double, grunting between his teeth as another man wrapped wrapped a cloth dressing around his waist. No one said a word to Madeleine or even seemed to notice him. He turned to look for Magritte, to offer his assistance should there be anything that needed doing. The chief inspector was standing close by Javert, putting chains on his prisoner. “So you came after all,” he was saying in a low voice.

“I did,” Javert answered. 

Then Javert was again at Madeleine’s side. “It’s over,” he said. “The prisoners; the injured; the dead – all are accounted for. Chief Inspector Magritte has the situation in hand. May I see you home, Monsieur?”

.

They walked softly through the still streets. Madeleine had questions but somehow the quiet around them made it hard to speak. Finally he said, “You know, it is I who should see you home. You brought that man down. You must be hurt.”

“I am all right, Monsieur.”

“You saved my life.”

Javert did not answer. 

They walked a little farther in silence.

“Javert. What were you doing there? How did you come to be right where I was? And, did I not order you to stay away lest you get hurt?”

Javert stopped walking. “I was watching you. I followed you. I disobeyed you.” After a moment he added, “Monsieur,” so that it sounded like an afterthought. They had by this time reached the main square. The old quarter, where Madeleine’s house was, was just two blocks farther on.

“Why?”

“I believed that you might go to the docks. And that you might need protection there. And I decided-- I thought that to stay away, should any harm befall you, was the greater disobedience." In a low voice he added, "It was still disobedience, what I did, and-- it is right to punish me for it.”

Madeleine ignored this last. “But I did not say I would be on the docks. You puzzle me, Javert. What made you think of it?”

“I am not sure I can explain, Monsieur; it is just... I have had a feeling, lately.” He gave Madeleine a quick, uncertain look. “I mean no disrespect to you, sir.”

“It’s all right. Tell me. I am curious to know.”

“It is... the way you move, the way you walk, the girth of your shoulders. It is strange but, these things, they are familiar to me. I— I wonder if you were not always a magistrate, monsieur. I thought, perhaps – forgive me for suggesting it – perhaps you were a fighting man, in your younger days. Maybe because of this I believed you might go to the docks. But now, I think I was wrong. You have never been a soldier.”

“What makes you think not now?”

The two began walking again in the direction of Madeleine’s house. “You looked at Boudrillard as if death were something new to you.”

“I’ve seen men die,” Madeleine answered. It was true, even before Toulon. His father had been the first: he had died in the warmth of the little kitchen. “But not like that. It was terrible -- his last moments.”

“He was an officer of the law. He died in the line of duty, Monsieur, saving the lives of his comrades. He would have no regrets.” After a moment he added, “The first time I saw a man die for the uniform, I was very young. Eighteen. A guard named Starles in the Bagne of Toulon -- an experienced man and one whom I admired -- lost control of a prisoner he was escorting to the infirmary. The convict leaped on him and disarmed him, then broke his neck. It was over in a moment; I did not even understand what I had seen."

Madeleine remembered – not the guard's name or face, but the man who had killed him: Vacre, a quiet man given to fits of uncontrollable rage. He had been executed in the yard with all the prisoners made to watch. Madeleine had never given any thought to the guard beyond a mild satisfaction. His death had, for a moment, evened the score a little for the prisoners. A guard was a guard, and any dead guard was a victory. 

_Father, forgive me._

They had reached the front gate of Madeleine’s house. “Javert: listen. It was you who made tonight a victory for the police. If not for your information, I think things would have gone very differently. Am I right?”

Javert, after a moment, nodded. “Yes, Monsieur.” 

It was a statement of agreement, nothing more. Madeleine ached to thank Javert properly for all he had done, but Javert remained unapproachable, still the obedient servant who has merely done his duty. Madeleine longed to reach through all the unsaid words that stood between them. He cast about. “Your information," he said finally. "Your ability to learn the secrets of the town. It's invaluable; you can see that. You must continue. Patrol the town by night as you have been doing. You will serve as an adjunct to Inspector Magritte's regulars. I would have you report to me, personally, twice a week. Also I am sure Magritte will be glad of your assistance. In return, I insist that you take the compensation given to senior officers.” Javert started to protest, but Madeleine held up his hand for silence. “You told me when you first arrived that you cannot do the work of a police inspector. After tonight, you cannot expect me to believe you any longer.”

Javert murmured, “No, monsieur. I suppose not.”

“You’ll have the chief inspector issue you a weapon. I can’t have you fighting unarmed and risking yourself. I don't-- I don't want the town to lose you.” He thought suddenly of Baudrillard. What was he asking of Javert? He was sending a man of unsound mind into dangerous duty. If Javert were killed, the blame would be Madeleine's alone. Perhaps he was making a terrible mistake.

But Javert was looking at him, his gaze clear and steady. “And-- will it be my place to make arrests and bring criminals to justice?”

“Of course, if you wish. You may work out the particulars with Magritte. Additionally, do not be surprised if he asks you to take over training the younger officers; I plan to suggest it to him. Am I correct in my suspicion that the police force here leaves room for improvement?”

Javert nodded soberly.

“And that if you trained them to do better, it would lessen the chance of more lives lost?”

Another nod, so small as to be barely perceptible.

“Then I order you to do so. Discuss it with Magritte and work out a training schedule of some sort. But not today. It is close to sunup, I think. Today you rest. As will I.”

.

He changed into his nightshirt and fell into bed. After the frantic excitement of the night, however, sleep did not come. He could not forget Boudrillard: the man's curses in the dark, his last grunting inhalations, and the limp warm weight of his corpse. Also he could not forget the prison guard Vacre had killed so long ago. He still could not summon the man's face. He had rejoiced in that man's death. But tonight he felt different. 

He pressed a hand over his chest and felt the rise and fall of his ribs as life rushed through him. How many times in a single day did a man take breath, and not notice the gift of it? Yet men were fragile, their bodies so easily broken. To each was given a span of years to spend striving doggedly for the precious objects of human desire: food, family, dignity.

“Dearest Father,” he muttered. “Forgive Boudrillard his trespasses, and take him to Your glory that he may rejoice there forever. And Vacre, my old chain-mate: have mercy on him. He was not a bad man. And-- and Starles, the prison guard. Thy will be done. Amen.”


	19. return to service

To Javert, all was suddenly clear. At the instant he slammed into the mayor's attacker, catching him in precisely the right spot below the shoulder of his pistol-arm, he knew again who he was and what he was meant for. The past year was erased - Paris, the cellar, Ecrain, all were washed away like a spatter of blood in the gutter, that needed only one good hard rain to scrub it clean. 

His instincts about M. Madeleine had been right and he had done his job well. Despite being out of practice and despite the damnable weakness of his body, his skill and experience had carried him. M. Madeleine, it must be noted, had been a blasted fool. To stand in plain sight like that, rifle lowered, in the face of a frontal attack? The man had all but begged to be killed.

Boudrillard's death was a great loss, though not unforeseen. The most important thing was that the plan had proven sound. The men had performed no better than Javert expected, but Magritte had led them well and Boudrillard had been as fearless as a lion. The men would be taking up a collection for the widow. He would give what was customary, a fifth share of his next pay. That would be his first honest pay since-- since when? It was painful to remember. So much time had been lost.

What else would he do with money? He would need clothes, of course. Though not the fine suits M. Madeleine had wanted to see him in; rather, a few rough caps and jackets and workman's trousers. Dressed as a laborer or loiterer, he would go unnoticed in the streets. He hoped it would be a long time before the underworld of Montreuil came to know his face, as the criminals of Paris had. 

There was only one thing that he lacked. Too bad the tobacconer's on the Boulevard St. Onge would not open for a few hours more.

 _Disobedient._

The word, with its sharp hiss and hard finish, came to him cold and clear as if M. Ecrain stood behind him. He was caught up short, a forgotten chain around his neck jerking him back. 

"No," he muttered. "I was not. Well-- all right-- in a way. Yes. But I had to protect him. I could tell what he planned." 

_So you think you can choose which orders to obey and which to disregard? You are such a smart man, now?_

"No! It was only this once. It wasn’t arrogance. It won’t happen again, Monsieur; I swear it."

_And now you intend to patrol the streets again - a privilege you lost when you betrayed us. You forget yourself. Do you think we were wrong? Do you now dare to question your punishment, your lessons, your special duties? Have you lost respect for M. Gisquet and M. Chabouillet? Are you now telling yourself that we were incorrect? That we were monsters?_

"No," said Javert uncertainly. Ecrain's voice was full of power and spite; he sounded as he had in the beginning, when Javert had not yet learned his lessons and his masters were very angry with him.

 _And if we were monsters, what would that make you? You, who failed to stop us. You, who whimpered as he was bent over our desks, and knelt before us with his mouth open. You who failed to defend the law. What kind of man would you be then?_

Images flashed through his mind: bodies and smells, laughter and commands and terrible sounds that had issued from his own throat. "No! It was justice, what you did! That is why I submitted-- Because it was only justice--" 

_Words. But proof requires deeds._

Slowly, understanding gripped him. He looked at the bed, at the knapsack, dark and squat. 

_You're slipping. This is the only way to stay on the right path._

He slumped. “Yes,” he muttered. “Yes. All right. It must be done.” 

_For your own benefit, of course. Every day._

Javert knew what M. Ecrain wanted him to say. He knew he would be allowed no rest until he said. And he knew, of course, that M. Ecrain was right. “Every day,” he choked.

.

He went into the hills before the sun rose. The burning, so familiar from his time in the cellar, made him take small steps so he went much more slowly than usual. It took most of the day to reach the third shelter, where he slept poorly. When he came home after a painful descent from the high country, the rag he had stuffed into his trousers was stained with blood. He ate methodically of the cold food waiting outside his door, but it had no taste. The hour was already quite late when he finished the meal, and he thought he would like to patrol the streets - but M. Madeleine had ordered him to rest. Also he had not yet obtained a weapon as M. Madeleine had commanded. A man must obey his superiors. So he sat gingerly with his back against a wall and his long arms wrapped around his knees. His thoughts turned very fast, one upon the next in a tight winding coil like a noose drawing closed. It was a long night. And when morning came he kept his word to M. Ecrain.

.

Afterward, he wore his Paris uniform to the station-house. His mind felt easier. He had kept his word to M. Ecrain. He would keep his word to M. Madeleine as well, and serve as he had been commanded. In this way, he hoped, M. Madeleine would be pleased and M. Ecrain would hold back the worst punishments, and see that he was trying to remain good.

Magritte looked over his uniform and studied the insignia. “Inspector, first class,” he said drily. “I might have known. M. le maire sent word you’d be coming my way. You’d like a pistol, I suppose.”

“A cudgel, Monsieur. I have less need of a pistol, but I’ll take one if you can spare it. Manacles, too.” He had a pair of his own, of course, in the black knapsack – but they were meant for his own wrists and he must keep them close; M. Ecrain had said so. For the riffraff of Montreuil he would need others.

“Silver Cross, I see." Javert looked down at his breast-pocket. He had made a mistake; he should have stripped off the Cross and all the decorations so the Chief Inspector would not think better of him than he deserved. Mssrs. Chabouillet and Gisquet had only left the medals on his uniform to shame him with how far he'd fallen. "Tell me this, Javert: Are you in Montreuil to replace me?”

“Monsieur, I serve at the pleasure of M. Madeleine. He has instructed me to make myself useful to you. I am under your command if you desire it.”

“Hmh. I am short-handed at present. Renard died of his stomach wound last night in the hospital. Five more were wounded seriously enough to be unfit for a long time to come, and two others have minor injuries and are on light duty until week’s end. And Boudrillard, of course.” He fiddled with his ink-stand. “It could have been worse. Could have been better, too." Focusing a hard look on Javert, he snapped, "Where were you during the fighting?”

“I was with M. Madeleine. In the wasteyard outside the fish-house. Later, in front of the Palais.”

“I see. With M. Madeleine, were you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So may I take it that you’re his personal guard?" Inspector Magritte smile was a sneer. "Yet he doesn’t strike me as a man with many enemies plotting against him. Perhaps you will now tell me he’s a lost heir of Versailles?”

“No, monsieur, I am not his personal guard -- unless he needs one. And he needed one that night, sir.” 

Magritte delivered a cold stare. Slowly Javert raised his head and returned it. Despite Magritte's biting tone, he was not, Javert thought, as angry as he appeared. He was feeling Javert out, and an understanding was being reached between them. Magritte disliked his sudden appearance and his Paris credentials - it was clear that M. Madeleine had chosen not to reveal to him Javert’s disgrace - but he was saying that he would tolerate the intrusion as long as Javert made Magritte's work easier and did not overstep his bounds.

“Is your face known to the townspeople? You have not been here long, I understand.”

“My face is not known, Monsieur.”

“Then you are most useful if you stay in the shadows and gather information, rather wasting your talents terrorizing our working girls and tame pickpockets. Come to the station-house every morning to make your report to me about the night’s activities. I’ll let you know if I need you for other duties. It may be some time before I get fresh officers posted here to replace the ones I’ve lost.”

“As you wish, Monsieur.”

“M. le maire also informs me that you have orders to train the junior officers. Well, well. I am sure you’ll have us all up to Parisian standards in no time." He grimaced. "How do you plan to proceed?”

“If you will permit it, sir, I can drill them daily after the morning report, on the practice field behind the station-house. I would like to start with hand-to-hand engagement. The men are not skilled in subduing criminals at close range. Many of the injuries they suffered on the docks would have been avoided by better men.”

“They will be cheered to hear that, I am sure. By the way, the men on night shift will not be pleased to be held late each morning. They are accustomed to making a brief report to the day officers, then home to bed.”

“They will get used to it,” said Javert.

“I expect so.” Magritte rose. “Men under my command wear decent boots,” he said. “See the cobbler today. The barber too.” Javert put his hand to his face in consternation. “No; not your whiskers." He motioned. "Your hair.”

“Yes, Chief Inspector,” Javert said carefully, though he had a sudden flash of embarrassment at Magritte's words. He bowed. There was one thing he yearned to ask. “The smugglers who were captured. What was done with them?”

“Packed into the jail, the lot of them - chained hand and foot, as I can spare only one man to guard them all. I’ve sent word to Arras. They’re dispatching a detachment of gendarmes to escort the bastards there under heavy guard. Twenty-one men we took in; three more are gone to the pauper’s field.” He paused. Something that was very close to a smile touched the corners of his lips. “It was a good plan we came up with. All in all.”

Javert nodded. He could feel his blood continuing to seep silently into the rag. “All in all,” he agreed. 

. 

The cobbler’s shop was a small place on the Rue Vert with two stools and a wall of leather-working tools. The cobbler looked more like a smith, being nearly as tall as Javert himself and massive in the chest. His voice, low and soft, came as a surprise. 

“The soles of the ones you've got on are worn nearly clear through. Sit down and take them off so I can see your feet.” 

Javert bridled. Cobblers always wanted to look at a man’s feet. Why not simply measure the sole of his boot while he wore it? He would have argued this point but feared he would only end by being detained here longer. Being the object of other men's eyes was becoming somewhat more tolerable; being ordered to undress, however, bothered him deeply. Resentfully he pulled off his boots and revealed his stockinged feet. The cobbler took hold of the right one and drew it up so he could see the bottom. He cupped the foot and began to run one hand gently over the underside. Javert gasped and jerked away. 

“This hurts?” said the cobbler. “Are you wounded?”

“No.”

“Then hold still so a man can do his work.”

A young girl’s voice, plaintive and frightened, filtered through from upstairs. “I won’t go, mama! I don’t care if he’s gone away. I don’t believe you!”

The cobbler’s mouth tightened. He took some measurements, working quickly and in silence. “Monday next,” he said finally, releasing Javert's foot. “Six francs, and you can pay when you return.”

Javert pulled his boots on, hands shaking, and escaped.

. 

Outside the barber shop, he hesitated. A clutch of men were inside, most sprawled in chairs with a couple more leaning easily against the walls. “You there,” the barber called genially to him. “Make up your mind! That rat’s nest you're growing isn’t getting any shorter.” The men in the shop turned towards him, grinning. 

Never mind. He shook his head and hurried away. 

At home he fetched the small scissors and set up the glass. He was shocked by what he saw there. How was it possible that he'd missed noticing the wild thicket massed atop his head, though every evening he looked into this very glass and trimmed his whiskers with minute care? It was baffling how a man could blind himself to a thing that stared him in the face. 

He began snipping. Hanks of dull gray hair tumbled to the floor around him. He trimmed the back part by feel and then set to work making the sides even. He moved from the left side to the right and back again, frowning, trying to get it perfect. A too-close snip left a shorn patch at his temple where the scalp showed through. He recoiled at the sight of his exposed flesh. A strange urgency overtook him: he felt he could not set down the scissors until the job was complete. He always seemed to be one final snip from perfection, but each snip threw off the balance somehow and another was required, and after that another. He saw with distress more patches of scalp appearing in the scissors's wake. 

He realized all at once that he had gone too far. The inexpert cropping had created not the military look he had desired, but the appearance of a Toulon prisoner. The thinness of his face accentuated the unwanted resemblance. With disgust and horror he turned the glass over on the table, snatched up his hat, and crushed it down over his ears. 

.

The manacles were smooth and heavy in his pocket, the cudgel solid under his arm. He had left the pistol at home. What use was a pistol? There was nothing on these streets he feared, and if he did come upon some sort of danger, he didn’t want to kill it at a distance. 

The street was quiet. It was late, veering past midnight, and a biting wind split around him as he walked. He heard a sound behind him, and whirled - but saw only a dog, its ribs standing out like ship's timbers, limping along on three legs in the snow. He was disappointed to see no one else. A desire had formed in him - he could not say when; perhaps the night of the smugglers' attack or perhaps much earlier. A smoldering sort of anger and discontent had risen in him. He had a longing to turn a corner, surprise a troublemaker, have the man turn to the attack so they could make a fight of it. His hands itched and he clenched his fists frequently to calm them. His imagined adversary would be strong and fierce and would strike first, and Javert would take the blow with his body – a hard blow, one to drive him back off his feet. Then he’d rear up swinging his fists, his cudgel too, shouting and cursing with nothing held in reserve. They’d be on each other in an instant, both pounding each other and matching blow for blow. Javert might triumph or he might be beaten down in the end; it didn't matter. The fight was the thing. Something in him cried out for it.

The streets, however, provided no troublemakers worth pursuing. The town that night was whitened and silenced by slow-falling snow that drifted down from the cloud-rinsed sky. Montreuil's snow indeed stayed white longer than snow in Paris, but it frustrated him too, for in the abandoned streets there was nothing to do but clench his hands on empty air. The dry whip handle tore into him every morning as M. Ecrain commanded, leaving him seared and bleeding; the burn of it stayed with him all the time. But there was a different pain in him, too: a slow seething in his chest and gut that he couldn’t name. He wanted to loose his anger against someone, against anything. But the snow kept falling, and nothing crossed his path.

.

“Well, Javert? Anything to report?”

“Nothing of interest, M. le maire." He was formal at these meetings, standing stiffly at attention despite M. le maire's invitation to sit down. "The town is quiet. On Tenement Row two nights ago, I witnessed a drunken incident at Number 26 which resulted in breakage of valuable property belonging to the landlord. I have passed the information on to Chief Inspector Magritte and have sworn out my testimony in writing.”

“And, and how are you, Javert? Are you enjoying the work?”

“Monsieur?” It was an unexpected question.

“The work. It is what you wanted, is it not? To be useful; to continue your career. Isn’t it enjoyable?” Madeleine’s eyes held a hint of disquiet. 

Was it? He found the question difficult. Certainly he was glad of the work. He was no longer a parasite who depended on charity; he could pay honestly for his lodgings and buy himself new boots. And there was more: there was joy - joy in the quick return of his instincts, and the more gradual return of his strength. When he slipped among the alleys with his hand around the head of his cudgel, he felt hot excitement burning down the lengths of all his nerves.

But it was not the same as it had been in Paris. There, he had strode through the marble headquarters and young officers had fallen silent when they saw him, and the Silver Cross pinned to his lapel. Now he belonged to no prefecture, exactly; he prowled separate and alone. He presented himself every morning to train the officers of the town as M. Madeleine had insisted, but he did not greet them as colleagues. He took his place in front of them and issued orders in a tone that made them obey - that was all. They were men who grouped themselves together, and he was something else: an outsider who kept to himself.

He kept his ear cocked, always, for the angry crack of M. Ecrain's voice. In the night, when he was wholly engaged in patrolling, it was muted - but when he returned to his quarters at the end of every night, its excoriating mockery redoubled. Each day at dawn, he closed the door of his room quietly and bent his head as the jibes richoceted through him, and then he took the whip from the black knapsack with heavy-hearted resolve. He knew his obligations. In the night he obeyed M. Madeleine, but as the sun rose it was M. Ecrain, enraged and unbending, who reasserted ownership of his body and soul. 

“I am glad to be of service, Monsieur,” he said. “Thank you for the position. I will try to be worthy of it.” M. Madeleine’s eyes, still disquiet, followed him out.

.

Madeleine leaned against a fence by the small practice field behind the station-house. The field lay under snow like the rest of Montreuil; the pink glow of sunrise lay upon it. The snow, however, was no longer quite fit to be called by that name: it had been churned into muddy slush by the boots of thirty or more officers who were arrayed on it. The men had paired off and were practicing a sequence of blows and blocks against each other.

He had positioned himself under the drooping branches of a fir so he was half-hidden and could watch without been noticed. He had debated with himself about coming - if he were seen here, wouldn't Javert take it as a lack of trust? - but in the end he could not keep himself away. He was concerned for Javert. He had hoped that night by the docks would mark a change, and that Javert would flourish and return to whatever he had once been, before those villains in Paris had destroyed him, but this was clearly not the case. When Javert made his reports in Madeleine's office, he still appeared haunted and unhappy. Madeleine did not understand, but he would help if it were in his power. 

Javert called one of the men over, his voice carrying clearly through the biting air. At least he was a far cry from the cowering creature he had been when Madeleine first met him. The two men squared off. “Attack!” Javert barked. The officer sprang at him, first feinting towards Javert's throat, then catching him by the wrist and twisting his arm roughly back, and finally delivering a sweeping kick that knocked out Javert's legs so he fell heavily to the sodden ground. It happened so quickly that Madeleine was surprised to see their final poses: the older man sprawled in the mud and panting heavily, the younger one standing above him.

“Too slow,” said Javert. He clambered to his feet. “Again, but with quicker hands. Attack!” The young man repeated the assault and again Javert blocked his first move but was then knocked to the ground, this time landing hard on his stomach with a grunt as the air rushed out of him. He staggered up, wheezing and shaking his head. “No,” he said. “No. I showed you yesterday. You need more force. Put your hip into it when you twist the arm back, or your man will be able to lunge to the side and catch you off balance - and you’ll never drop him then. Again, harder.” He readied himself.

“But, M. Javert,” the officer protested. “I did drop you. Twice.”

“Only because I’m twice your age and out of practice,” Javert snapped. “Don’t imagine you’ll get so lucky with every scoundrel on the streets. Again!”

So it went. Five times Javert ordered the man to attack him. Five times Javert was struck and spun and hurled against the ground with force enough to stun him; each time he was slower getting to his feet. The young officer tried to protest - "Monsieur, are you all right?" - but Javert only spat a curse at him, and urged him in a choked voice to hit like a man. Madeleine, who had been standing tensely, was relieved when at last Javert sent the officer off to practice with a different partner. His relief, however, lasted only an instant: Javert barked out a name, and another man trotted up to take the first one's place. They began the same routine. "Attack!" Javert urged. "Again! Faster! Harder!" He offered his body up without care, heedless of the beatings it received. Five more times he was pummeled and thrown down. Then he called another name. Nausea gripped Madeleine as he understood what Javert intended. Every man on the force, some thirty or more, were to take him in turn. He winced and even cried out in horror as he saw Javert's arm jerked back repeatedly, his throat struck over and over, his abdomen kicked so he doubled over. No part of him was spared. "Again! Again!" he hissed -- and it was not a command, Madeleine thought, as much as a plea.

“It is a thing to see, monsieur, is it not?”

Madeleine turned in surprise. Magritte had come up beside him and leaned against the fence, watching the exercises. “I think perhaps he doesn’t feel it.”

“Can that be?" Madeleine answered grimly. "Every man feels pain.” 

Magritte shrugged. “Some men have known enough pain that they learn to harden themselves against it. For a soldier or an officer it’s not uncommon, monsieur.”

 _For a convict, too._ At Toulon he had deadened himself to pain, for it was part of the daily round, unavoidable, and to shirk it brought further punishment. But he had never sought it out as Javert was doing now. He faced Magritte. “Does he do this on your orders, Inspector?"

He knew little of the chief inspector. As mayor, he had left the police mostly to themselves, for he had a vague idea that their business was unsavory and that a man who sought salvation did well to keep his distance from them. The night on the docks had done a lot to change his opinion. He had seen how Magritte and his men had risked all, and sometimes lost all, defending a society that did not entirely welcome them and rarely thanked them for their sacrifices. The officers, he saw, had made the best of their outcast status by forming their own secret brotherhood bound by blood. But he was still unsure of what kind of men they truly were, and in his heart he feared them. 

“Certainly not, M. le maire. I would not abuse any man under my command in such a fashion -- especially now when I’ve lost enough good officers to the care of the sisters, and the priest. It is his arrangement entirely. When I first saw it I spoke against it.”

“You could have ordered him to stop! Or if you will not, I will.”

“If you’ll permit me to say it: I think that what you would mean for a kindness, he would take as a cruelty."

"Oh?" Madeleine felt a prickle of annoyance. "How so?"

Magritte nodded his chin toward the field, where Javert lay on his back gasping under the latest assault. "He is following his own star, that one. If this is what he chooses, let him do it. I would guess he has his reasons. In fact," he added, "I'm beginning to form some opinions about him.”

“Are you, indeed.” Javert had regained his feet, and it appeared that the training session was, at long last, breaking up. The men assembled in formation. Javert stood before them, holding himself nearly straight and very stiffly upright. His back was still to Madeleine; black water dripped from the hem of his coat.

“It is interesting, monsieur." Magritte stroked his broad jaw. "There stands a man who has been decorated with the Silver Cross and who was posted here, he told me, by M. Gisquet himself. Yet he is also a man who, when I first saw him, was in handcuffs -- witless, filthy, and wild as a savage. He looks somewhat better these days. Still, I will hazard that he has not entirely recovered from his troubles. He is a hero of the Paris prefecture, I think: sent here for a rest cure in the countryside.” He looked to Madeleine. "Am I correct, Monsieur?"

"It's - an internal matter," said Madeleine.

Magritte regarded him evenly. Madeleine detached himself from the fence, and wished the inspector a good day. He did not enjoy the other man's quiet perusal; moreover, he was eager to leave before Javert turned and caught him here, watching.

As he strode off with the snow crunching under his shoes, he thought of the chief inspector's question, and the answer he had not given. _Actually, he was sent here to be degraded as my slave. He came in a dog collar that I buckled on him myself. And in return, he has saved my life._

He liked Magritte’s guess better. He would very much like to see Javert enjoy a rest cure in the countryside.


	20. michel

Madeleine stood uncertainly at Javert's door, listening to a rustling noise on the other side. 

An hour had passed since the training session had broken up. He had tried to stretch the time by walking a circuitous route through the white-powdered streets, looking in shop windows longer than he wanted to, and handing out coins to children. But it had been an hour - and surely that was enough time for Javert to bathe and change. 

Madeleine knew he was taking a liberty with his position. He should not be here. The man had, after all, been up all night patrolling and had then been battered on the practice field for half the morning. What he clearly needed was rest, not to have his superior turn up at his lodgings unannounced. Amyway, he was due to report to Madeleine tomorrow afternoon at the mairie. That was soon enough. Madeleine should wait.

Except that he did not want to, and could not make himself. The thought of sitting through the day in his cheerless office repelled him. He could not turn his thoughts from the image of the tall thin man being knocked to the ground, again and again, and stumbling up each time to face his attacker. There was a gallantry to it, a meeting of heroism and humility that caught at Madeleine's soul. He imagined the bruises that Javert must bear all over his body from the beating he had taken. And he had not been able to stop his feet from carrying him to the Chorins' home.

He rapped. The rustling stopped. “Javert? It is I -- Madeleine.” He thought he heard a stifled gasp from within, and then a commotion: lurching footsteps, a chair dragged hastily across the floor, more rustling of an almost desperate nature. He cursed himself. The man had probably been at ease, wearing only his shirt and trousers. Worse, perhaps he had not finished bathing. “I am sorry, Javert – I should not have disturbed you. It’s no matter. We will talk tomorrow.”

“No— no,” came the muffled answer. “One moment, monsieur. A moment only. Please forgive me.” 

It was a long moment, during which Madeleine shifted from foot to foot and wished he had not come. Finally the door opened. Javert was dressed in the police uniform he had worn out of Paris; the only difference, of course, was the article of leather at his throat. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting. And I apologize for the room. I have not had time to arrange it.” He need not have said so, for the room told its own story. The clothes Javert had worn that morning were heaped across a chair, dripping steadily into an enlarging lake below. Muddy tracks crossed the floor from the doorway to the bed. The bed itself appeared untouched as before and the black knapsack, flap open, was still hunkered there in its accustomed place. 

His host pulled out a chair. “Please, Monsieur.” He was pale and moved awkwardly, holding himself stiff at the waist. 

It had been a mistake to come, but now he was here and they were together and Javert would of course be wondering what had brought him. Madeleine was wondering this, himself. He had come because he could not stay away, but now that he faced Javert he did not know what he meant to say to him. “No, no; I will not stay long. You are tired. It is only that, that I was nearby and I thought I might come see you. I wanted to ask – well, ah -- did you patrol last night?”

“Of course, monsieur. But I have nothing to report. The night was calm.”

“I am afraid the snow is a hardship. We don’t usually get so much in this part of the country.”

“I am accustomed to it. In Paris this would not be considered unusual.” 

“Of course.” He shifted. “Listen, Javert. I will say it." But he did not say anything. Javert waited, and if he were impatient or fatigued or wished Madeleine gone -- and surely he must -- he kept his thoughts hidden. Finally Madeleine said simply, "I am worried about you.”

It was a stupid thing to say, a clumsy thing, and a quick watchful look flashed in Javert’s eyes. “You need not be, monsieur. I am quite well.”

“The exercises you are conducting with the officers. I went by the field this morning. I saw.” Javert’s expression revealed nothing, and Madeleine had the sense he was floundering through deeper snow than the drifts that lay outside Mme. Chorin’s door. “I wish to know why you are doing this.”

Mild surprise showed on the other man's face. “It is at your command, Monsieur le maire. You did order me to train them.”

“That’s not what I am referring to. Javert. You are putting yourself in harm's way.” 

“I am not sure what you mean." Javert edged away a little, though not so much to be obvious; not so much to be impolite. "I am having them practice techniques of hand-to-hand engagement; that is all. They need instruction. It is my duty.” 

“That is your answer? It is your duty to take a beating at the hands of thirty-odd men?"

He was blundering. Words had never come easily to him. They had called him surly as a youth in Faverolles. At Toulon, despair and bitterness had rendered him nearly mute, and in Montreuil he kept to himself when he could and got little practice at conversation. With Mme. Voisier he discussed whether there should be duck for dinner; with Robert he discussed the day's appointments; with the intendant of city housing he discussed tenement repairs, and to God he recited his faults. Now, confronting Javert's guarded stare, he could only plunge forward with desperate bravado. "The way you're moving -- you're injured, aren't you. What is it? Do you need the doctor?”

Pale as he was, Javert became a shade whiter. “Please. That is not necessary.”

“Then at least tell me why you are doing this.”

Javert took a definite step back. He looked wary. “I am afraid this is a misunderstanding. The men need practice, and I would be a poor instructor if I failed them out of some concern for myself.” 

“Yet I swear you will be a poorer one still, with a broken leg or arm.” 

“You remember, Monsieur, that Boudrillard gave far more than an arm. And Renard. Others, too.”

“And I respect them for their sacrifice, but -- this is different.”

“In your view, yes. In mine, it is not.”

“By God, Javert! You cannot tell me this is merely the act of a dedicated instructor. Watching you today, it put me in mind of--” He looked at Javert, whose gaze remained hooded. “It put me in mind of something you said on the coach, when we came from Paris.” He stopped, willing Javert to make it easy for him. But Javert said nothing. “You know that the officers, they-- they have no rights over you.”

Javert flinched. A touch of red came into his cheeks, accentuating the pallor that surrounded them. “Monsieur,” he said. “I was sent here to serve you. I remain at your disposal.” He was looking away, saying the words carefully. His face looked pained. “If you desire anything of me of a personal nature, you need only command it. Beyond that, I wish only to do my work to the highest standard I can attain. If you have any complaints to make, I will of course try to improve.” 

Again, the sad gallantry of Javert caught like a thorn at Madeleine's heart. _He was once the most honorable of men._ “No-- no. I don't mean it as complaint. Only as concern. I am inclined to order you to cease this manner of training.” Madeleine thrust his hands into his pockets. "Yet Magritte thinks I should not." 

He sighed and glanced around the room. Under the chair where the sodden clothes dripped, a wadded-up rag had fallen to the floor. Its white folds were stained freshly red. Javert, seeing where Madeleine's gaze had landed, flushed more deeply. He hobbled stiffly to the cloth and with a quick motion, tucked it out of sight. 

But Madeleine was not willing to pretend blindness. “In heaven's name, Javert. Show me where you are wounded. If you won’t have the doctor, at least let me see what damage has been done.”

Javert stiffened. “I would rather not, Monsieur.”

“Mme. Chorin, then: she knows some nursing. And she will set your room in order and wash your clothes. Let me fetch her.”

“I assure you, monsieur, there is no need for that.”

Madeleine cried out in frustration. “By God, you are stubborn! Like my nephew Michel. He was a great one for this. If he came home with a black eye he’d hide in the long grasses behind the cottage so my sister wouldn’t know of it.”

He had not spoken of Michel in a long time - not since his earliest years in Toulon, probably. It made him feel warm to say the name, as if he had conjured the boy a little closer. “Michel. My sister’s oldest. He got his arm laid open with a knife, once, and kept the wound hidden for days. 'Please, don’t tell Maman' - that’s all he'd say.” 

The smells of grease and woodsmoke returned to him, hanging thick in his sister’s hut where the nine of them shared two rooms. A few nights after his injury, Michel had come to his mat in the darkness and crouched beside it, shaking his shoulder to wake him. “Uncle. _Uncle.”_ He was close to tears - Michel who had not cried even at the graveside of his father. By the light of a candle Valjean saw the tendon glisten in the depths of the wound, and that was bad, it was very bad, because a farm boy crippled at thirteen was as good as dead. 

“Did you?” Javert was looking at him with grave interest. “Tell her?”

“No.”

A great longing came over him. It had stayed their secret, his and Michel’s, in the shed late at night, night after night, with a barrel of icy streamwater for soaking, and Jeanne’s own bridal linens ripped into strips for bandages. He’d prayed silently over the arm, prayers without words, and as the nights passed a slow rejoicing came over him, as he saw God in His majesty work the mystery of healing into the boy’s flesh. He did not remember being happy in those days - in the crowded little cottage with the baby always squalling, nine mouths to feed and never enough money - but now he thought of the warmth and noise they'd shared back then, and he wondered how he could have been anything else. 

In Faverolles the tall grasses sent up their seed-stalks in September. His sister used to sit by the fire in the evening, the mending spread across her lap, rocking the cradle with her foot, weaving the needle delicately between her raw red hands. “They helped themselves to milk sometimes,” he said suddenly, “the older ones, from the shed of the farmer across the way. I’d pay, afterwards. Jeanne never knew about that either. Then there was Charlotte; she was the baby. It made her laugh to pull on my beard. And Jacques, he was our scholar. We used to talk about sending him to school--” 

He stopped, embarrassed to see Javert watching him intently. “Are you certain there is nothing I can do for you?” he muttered.

“No, monsieur, thank you.” 

"Very well." He extended a hand to Javert, who took it tentatively. He tightened his grip and held on for, perhaps, longer than the expected time. It was oddly difficult to let go. 


	21. difficulty of pleasing two masters

In the two weeks since the skirmish on the docks, snow had kept falling and the streets had stayed mostly quiet. The past few days, however, had seen a thaw - and as mud and debris emerged from under its white coverlet and streams of meltwater coursed along the gutters, trouble had returned to the docks and the poor neighborhoods that Javert haunted by night. Two nights back, he had finally made his first arrest, intervening in a backstreet robbery when the seaman facing the knife looked drunk and foolhardy enough to take a swing at the thief. Stepping out of hiding, Javert had taken the attacker by the wrist and given a sharp twist so the blade fell from his nerveless grip. “Don’t struggle,” he said mildly. ”There’s a good fellow.” 

Secretly though, didn’t he hope the man would struggle? Suppose the robber were a former prize-fighter fallen into crime, or a practiced cut-throat with tricks up his sleeve. One quick move and he might throw Javert off balance and spring at him, leaving him no time to get his cudgel up. Then he’d have nothing to count on but his nerves and his reflexes, and they’d hit the rough cobbles together, and Javert would bare his teeth and unleash every savage instinct inside him, his urge to fight, to cause pain, to kill-- 

It would be dangerous. The injuries he sustained daily on the practice field, and with the whip handle, would slow him down in any hand-to-hand fight. Also, he was not yet at full strength. He used to go into any fight cocksure and certain of victory. But now he was aware that his first engagement against a skilled opponent might be his last. 

The thought excited him. 

But the alley-thief had been, as it turned out, simply an alley-thief. He was stronger and heavier than Javert but sluggish, like most men who are used to getting what they want by simple virtue of being bigger and more stupid than everyone around them. He had no tricks beyond the usual clumsy punches, which he backed up with a torrent of coarse words. “Yes, yes,” Javert answered, smiling grimly against the collar of his coat. With practiced skill his left hand did what it had done a thousand times before, dipping into his pocket and coming up with the manacles while his left thumb flipped the catch open. He levered the man on his hip, spun him, twisted his arms into position behind his back and then, one-two, snapped the irons into place. The motions, so familiar he could perform them in his sleep, made him sigh with satisfaction. He had wanted a fight, but there was pleasure in this too. 

At the station-house, he shoved the thief forward first. “This one," he told the night-duty man, "he goes to the lock-up. This other one, here" - he gave the drunk seaman a shake - "is going to swear out a complaint. Aren’t you?” he glowered. 

The night-duty man, who had come from Arras the week before, was no more than twenty and green as grass. He looked at Javert with admiration. Javert had to admit there was pleasure in that as well. He could hear Ecrain heaping abuse on him, warning him he was getting above himself - but the voice was not as loud as it had once been. 

Not all moments were as good. One night he ran toward the sound of a scream behind a tavern and when he arrived, found a town woman with her back against a wall and three sailors surrounding her. He disliked prostitutes; however, as vile as their work was, they had a right to be paid for it. In addition, seeing three men set upon a lone female did not suit his ideas of honor. 

He stepped in front of the men. “Does this woman owe you something?”

“What’s it to you?” They closed in on him, hostile. He smelled the odors rising from their bodies: eau-de-vie and sweat. He brought out his cudgel, smiling a little, hoping they would take his challenge. 

“If no money has changed hands, then you’d do well to let her go.”

After they moved off, swearing, he pressed the woman to come to the station and make a report. She would not budge. “You don’t know how it is. Word’ll get around that I’m a troublemaker and then I won’t see any work. And those men – they’ll come back some night, or they’ll send their friends, and where will you be when they do?” 

He knew her type; it made him almost regret intervening. “People like you,” he snapped, “are the reason criminals thrive.” 

Instead of appearing chastened, she glared at him. “Oh, you’re a fine one to lecture me! A copper, are you? You’ve got a hundred uniforms to back you up. What would you do if it was different – if you were on your own and anyone could take a piece of you, and all of them stronger than you? You'd play nice, too, wouldn't you - you'd go along with it, let 'em do anything to you they wanted.” 

That brought him up short. She had some nerve, the minx! He stared at her for a moment, white-lipped and quivering with rage, gripping his cudgel as if he meant to use it. Then he strode away. 

.

The police force was improving. He spent a week training them to defend themselves bare-handed against a knife-attack. His shoulders throbbed constantly from the wrenching assaults dealt him by the men, and he was bruised, scraped, and swollen over his whole body. He refused to attend to his injuries. His body would recover, or else it wouldn’t – it was no concern of his. And the pain of his morning ritual with the whip handle was always present, daggering him even in his sleep. 

He still climbed into the hills every day after he left the practice field. Despite his injuries and fatigue, he was drawn on by the terrain in its wild glittering expanse, painted in frost and snow that were not quite white but a palette of silvery tints depending on the day and the angle of the sun. M. Ecrain’s mocking voice became more distant as he climbed. Much louder was the music of the land: the humming moan of the wind, the shriek of birds, the sound of his own pulse thudding as he went. 

But when he returned to the city, M. Ecrain's voice was always waiting.

What confounded Javert, was that M. Ecrain and M. Madeleine were not in agreement. M. Madeleine was pleased with him. The sickening kindness which the mayor had formerly larded on him had transformed itself, slowly over these past weeks, into what could only be termed respect - which Javert drank in and bent towards as if it were the light and warmth of heaven. He had earned it fairly, for he was doing his work well: vigilant through the frigid nights, fiercely demanding on the practice field, and unsparing of himself in the name of duty. Each time in the mairie that M. Madeleine clasped his hand or faced him with a level, penetrating gaze or asked his advice on some matter of security, these small tokens of esteem filled him with an unspeakable, rising joy, filling an unnamed need that sobbed within him. Yet in front of M. Ecrain he was failing, and failures demanded punishment; that was the rule - and so he gave his body to the officers on the practice field, and showed himself no mercy with the whip.

Something else troubled him. There was also a disturbing but elusive mystery surrounding M. Madeleine. There was something familiar about the mayor - something he'd once known, perhaps, and forgotten. It was an important thing, yet Javert could not put his finger on it. 


	22. early thaw

“Didn’t!”

“You did, you cheating bastard! Give it here!”

In the alley behind the salt-house, the two seamen lunged at each other and tumbled to the ground. No weapons were in evidence, and the men were too drunk to do each other any lasting damage. Still, Javert hovered close in shadow. Magritte wanted to use him as a spy as well as an inspector, and so Javert was careful to keep his face from being much seen around the town. He did not intervene in petty disputes unless he saw a threat of real harm. 

The less drunk of the two pulled himself up and hung against a post, gasping for breath. “God damn you, Guillaume. Get up. Buy me another drink and we’ll call it even.” He stuck out his hand to his fallen adversary. The other man took it and heaved himself up with a grunt, and the two stumbled off down the alley with their arms around each other's shoulders like the best of friends.

Javert was finding it hard to concentrate on his duty tonight. Ecrain had been very angry that morning, had accused him of forgetting himself, of shirking his duty. The punishment he demanded had been harsher than usual. Javert tried not to think about it, but it was hard to think of anything else.

The night was clear. It could not quite be called warm but it was certainly mild, a balm after the unceasingly bitter winds and snows of the previous month. A gibbous moon was suspended in the northern sky, afloat in a phosphorescent river of stars. From all around came the sounds of wetness. Meltwater dripped from every roof and pattered down onto the muddy street, striking stone or snow or lakes of water. To this symphony was added the occasional plush thud of a falling snow-clump, and the hiss of rivulets along the gutters. It was a lush ode to the coming promise of spring. 

He heard distant footfalls. A woman’s step, surely: a woman with light boots and a quick stride, making her way through the slush. He headed toward the sound. It was late for a woman to be walking these streets alone; she would bear watching. Flowing silently along the edge of the alley, he kept his ears cocked as he moved unerringly toward the echoing footsteps until, turning another corner, he glimpsed her. She wore a servant’s uniform and a red kerchief which barely managed to bind back her dark masses of unruly hair. Her loose-limbed walk was familiar, even more than her face, and it took him only an instant to place her: this was the same girl who had passed so close to him that first night, when he had kept watch from hiding in the gap beside the Chorins’ house.

She crossed the avenue and turned up a small alley that ran behind the Rue de la Victoire. It was not a particularly dangerous area. Ahead he could hear the sounds of the fashionable café two blocks on, which was frequented by the finer gentlemen of Montreuil-sur-Mer. The scent of wine reached him, clear and sharp, and under it the sweet repellent odor of absinthe. 

Likely she was heading towards the modest block of apartments near the tenements. It was a decent neighborhood, where the landlord - none other than M. Madeleine - was so conscientious that not a single broken window or cracked front walkway marred the housefronts. A good master and a good mayor; Javert mused. Unconsciously, he touched the stock at his neck. 

The woman was now some distance ahead. The café noises were clearer now -- he could hear the rear door scrape open and could make out the rumble of men’s voices and a sudden shout of raucous laughter. The gentlemen would be playing at dice and cards within, or arguing about political matters. A few town ladies would undoubtedly be prowling about the entrance looking for customers, but they rarely made trouble. The woman had now reached a point where the alley bent a little to the left just before it passed the back entrance of the café. She had disappeared around this bend, coat flapping. But no matter. He would soon round the bend himself and would have a clear view again.

Then he heard her cry out.

It was a cry of surprise rather than fear. A man's voice followed. His tone was smooth and unthreatening; the rising din from the café, however, made it impossible for Javert to make out the words. He walked faster, his boots plowing furrows through the puddles. He heard the woman’s voice again; there was a note of urgency in it now. He pulled his hat lower and tucked his chin into the collar of his greatcoat. Then he broke into a trot, trying to ignore the increased burning of his wounded place, still keeping to the shadows of the smoked-brick walls that rimmed both sides of the narrow alley. His cudgel was ready under his arm. His manacles were ready in his pocket. 

He saw them in the moonlight. The woman was backed up against a wall. She was little more than a girl, really - Javert put her at no more than seventeen years. A lean man of medium height was standing too close, bending towards her. He sported the clothes of a fashionable gentleman, with silver buttons rising up his coat as high as his shoulders and a tall narrow-brimmed hat. Javert recognized him, vaguely, as one of the idlers often seen at the nearby café, where he played at dice and exercised his wit at the expense of the town women who stalked such establishments. He was standing, at this moment, with his hand on the girl’s shoulder. It did not look like a friendly chat. 

Now Javert could hear the woman clearly. He sidled closer.

“No, Monsieur, please. I would rather not.”

The gentleman answered cajolingly. “Lovely girl. Just one glass. Indulge a lonely man.”

“But I am going home. I beg you. My mother always worries, my late nights.”

“Come - I should think my eight francs a week buys me a little something extra, once in a while. Or,” he said, leaning in closer, “would you take advantage of my generosity and give me nothing for it?”

At that, Javert saw her put her chin up and twist away from the man's touch. “What I give you for it, Monsieur, is the washing and the cooking three nights a week. And if there’s another kind of work you need a girl for, then you’d best go off and find the kind of girl who does it.”

“Ho! Insolent little slut, aren’t you?” The man grabbed a fistful of her dark curls and tugged hard, making her yelp, and pulling the jaunty red kerchief askew. She tugged at his sleeve and tried to wrest her hair free of his grip. She was struggling in earnest now. He grinned down at her in the benevolent, easy way of a man who, if he had any cares to begin with, has left them at the bottom of a wine bottle. Using the back of his free hand, he slapped her hard across the face.

“Ow! Let me go!” 

Javert stepped into the middle of the alley and cleared his throat. The man turned to look at him, but did not loosen his grip on the girl’s hair. “It’s no business of yours, friend,” he called out. “Keep walking, would you?”

“Let go of her,” Javert said. For emphasis, he produced his cudgel. 

“We’re having a chat. She’s a servant in my house. It’s nothing.”

“Monsieur,” called the girl. Her voice was trembling. “Please don't go. I live on the Avenue des Comptes; I’m just walking home. I didn’t ask for any trouble.”

“Let go of her,” Javert said again. 

The man ignored him and turned back to his prisoner. “An insolent servant is what you are,” he said, “and perhaps it’s time I taught you a small lesson about showing respect for your betters.” He gave her hair another tug, snapping her head to the side as if she were a doll. “Respect,” he repeated with a smile; "that's what you need to learn." 

“Monsieur,” the girl cried to Javert. “Please, make him stop! Will you see me home?”

Javert looked from one to the other. It was a complicated matter; more complicated than he had originally thought. He did not want to act hastily. “You are this man’s servant?” he asked slowly. “He is your employer?” 

“Yes-- Oww!”

The man laughed. “Yes, she’s my servant -- eight francs a week for three evenings’ work, and what do I get for it but impudence? A bit of skirt, teasing me; hoping to get the goods on me and some extra money into the bargain, isn't that it, love? You think I don’t know what it means, you wiggling your hips while you pretend to keep your nose up in the air.” Over his shoulder he added, “As for you, my friend: take your stick and move on; let a man teach his servant-wench the lesson she’s been sorely wanting.”

“You're her superior, then," Javert said uncertainly. "She’s been disrespectful. Has she?”

“I’d say so.” The man leered. “A vixen. Going behind my back with half the young bucks in town, I’ve no doubt.”

Javert looked to the girl. She was frightened. He could see her chest heaving. She still clutched at the man’s sleeve with both hands, twisting away from him, trying to get free. But she was his servant; she should not be resisting him. This was defiance. 

“You work in his house,” Javert said to her. He was trying to work out what to do, and his brow arranged itself in deep lines as he thought. It was very difficult, this situation. But he knew what was right, didn't he? Yes. He knew. “This gentleman, then, is your master. That means-- it means you must give him what he is owed. Respect, obedience, service.”

“Monsieur,” she said. “Please.”

“Arrogance and pride,” he muttered.

“Monsieur—“ She gave a sharp cry of pain. The man was winding his fist tighter into her curls, jerking her forward so there was little space between them. “Help me! Make him leave me alone! I don’t want him!” 

“Treachery against one’s superiors,” Javert said in a low voice. He looked down at his hands. “The worst of crimes-- it cannot be tolerated-- A rebellious attitude. Pride. Stubbornness. These faults require improvement. They require lessons.” He flinched. _Lessons._ Lessons were hard but they were necessary.

“I beg you, Monseur. I don’t want trouble. I just want to go home!”

“He is your superior," Javert snapped. "He means to teach you; that is all. You must stop resisting. It is the natural order of things.”

At this point the man’s grin slowly returned, spreading upwards and outwards until it all but devoured the lower half of his face. “You hear that, my sweet girl? Our friend here shows some sense. A quick course in manners, that’s all we’re talking about. Then I’ll let you go home to Mother. Nothing to make a fuss about.” He threw a glance toward Javert - or, more precisely, toward the cudgel in Javert's hand. Javert thrust it back into its accustomed place under his arm.

“Forgive my intrusion, monsieur,” he said. He bowed politely. “Have a fine evening.” 

He chastised himself as he turned away. He had intervened in a private matter; it was the sort of mistake the youngest officers, new to the streets, might make. The man was a gentleman. Javert was almost sure that he had seen this very man striding home -- well, wobbling home, perhaps - to a very fine three-story stone house that stood at the end of the esplanade. He was a gentleman and master of the girl, his servant, who needed discipline. Well, tonight it appeared she would get it. 

Behind him, her scream tore through the night. He paused. This would do her good. She needed to be taught. He suspected she would not be a very quick learner. The gentleman would need to have great patience with her, as M. Ecrain had had patience. Though this particular gentleman, Javert reflected, did not seem the patient type. 

As he made his way down the alley, the girl’s shrill, terrified voice suddenly slashed through the night air behind him. “Monsieur! Help! Don’t—“ Her scream was cut short by a grunt of pain. There was a thud followed by a muffled moan. Then came the man’s voice, rough and careless. 

“Oh yes. Your first lesson. Open wide, and keep your teeth to yourself or you’ll have worse than that, I swear to you.”

Javert stopped. 

No more words followed, only a deep satisfied grunt, and then another. The grunts settled into a rhythm. Ah. Javert had a fair idea of what the man was teaching his servant. It was an important lesson. He trembled slightly. 

The night was perhaps half over. At this hour, many of the taverns on the docks would be closing and the city’s predators would be settling into their favorite hunting spots, tongues lolling out in anticipation as they lay in wait for their drink-addled prey. He would head towards the Rue de l'Havre. The area where he currently found himself, behind the Avenue de la Victoire, was well in order. He had no good reason to linger. 

The girl’s voice reached him again, crying now. “Ple-ease,” he heard, the word broken in half by her sobs. She sounded far away. “Ple-ease, mon-sieur—“ He could not hear the man’s answer. Then she screamed again. Javert ignored this. The docks were a fair distance away, and he should walk briskly if he wished to arrive in time to protect the drinkers as they reeled home. He instructed his feet to move.

Another scream pierced the night.

His feet did not obey him.

It was not so bad. The girl would learn respect, just as he had. The learning might be hard at first – really, he did not care to remember those early days and weeks and months – but then it got easier. One was taught, and one practiced very hard. Eventually one’s special duties became second nature and one's master was pleased. 

_Respect, obedience, service._ That's what mattered. Yet, just now, the words brought pain rather than clarity, for at the thought of them, there was a redoubling of the ever-present burning left by Ecrain's very necessary punishments. 

His feet had turned themselves around somehow.

Slowly, he began to make his way back toward the girl. She was screaming but in a muffled way - meaning that the gentleman was still teaching her that very important lesson he had started with, or else was keeping his hand over her mouth while he administered a lesson on another, equally valuable, subject. She was getting a good education. That was right and proper. However, it was also true that a tight bad feeling had risen in his chest, and his breath seemed to be sticking at the base of his throat. It was the wetness of the air; it must be; for the whole city seemed to be turning to water. All around him the dripping of melting snow continued, as did the trickle and swish of streamlets in the gutters. With every step he splashed up slush and mud and water higher than the height of his new boots, so that his trousers were becoming drenched and clinging like a second skin. No matter. The burning, though -- that was becoming very hard to tolerate. In fact he could hardly walk, so great was the pain. The girl screamed again, and the man swore, and he could hear her sobs plainly as he approached. He did not know why he was returning to check on them; in a peculiar way, it seemed his feet had taken the lead over his will. The man had restarted his rhythmic grunting and was saying words in between his grunts; coarse words that Javert was quite familiar with. The burning was terrible. Now he could hear the girl’s muffled screams and the man’s guttural grunts twining into each other. And despite the pain, he began to run. 

Around the bend, he saw them.

They were only a few steps from the wall where he had last seen them. Now the girl was doubled over an iron railing, her dress around her waist. The man was bent over her, clasping her close against him. He had one hand clamped over her mouth and the other one digging hard into her shoulder. His trousers were down and his hips bounced back and forth like a man doing a brisk posting trot in the saddle, driving the girl against the railing with each thrust so that its rusting posts squeaked a little in complaint. The gibbous moon shone solemnly down. The girl's dress was torn open at the neck, her eyes narrowed in pain, and her face wet and dripping, half-covered by the man's large hand.

“No,” said Javert. His stomach, inexplicably, was churning, and a great wave of dizziness had come over him. There was a bad smell in the alley - perhaps from rotten food, or else the oversweet seduction of absinthe from the nearby café. “Stop,” he said. 

The words emerged soundless from his throat. On this night, with the whole sodden world dripping and melting away, the air was too wet even to ignite his voice. “No,” he repeated. 

The two figures, male and female, had not yet seen him. Weakly, he sank down behind a heap of refuse, for he was lightheaded and close to retching. The girl was continuing to moan and twist desperately against the hands that imprisoned her. Javert did not like hearing her; in fact he wished very much to cover his ears - but he couldn’t do that, because the cudgel had somehow found its way into his dominant hand. His other hand, the left, now hovered over his coat pocket where the weight of the manacles nested like the comfort of an old friend.

The man's hand shifted and the girl bit down hard, making him shout in pain. With a curse, he thrust her even harder against the railing and yanked her head back by the hair. She made a choking noise. 

“No,” Javert whispered again. 

He stood up. The spinning lightness in his head made him nearly pitch forward. He grabbed the wall to steady himself. He found his voice. “You," he said. "Get away from her.”

The man looked over at him and laughed.


	23. justice

“Get away from her.” 

There was something piglike in the man's handsome face when he laughed, in the way he lifted his upper lip and his eyes got small. The flat silver discs of his buttons snared the moonlight. “Not your affair, is it.” Panting, the man thrust his hips hard against the girl again. Her head was still wrenched back. She was gasping. 

“You--" Javert said. He tried to order his thoughts. "You have no right. You’re in violation of the law.” His mouth was dry. White-hot flames were licking at the edges of his vision. He was burning. Always burning. The pain was bursting through his wounded flesh like a hot spike. 

“She’s my servant,” the man said. But he slid himself back from her so a hair's breadth of space appeared between them. Still he kept his hand twisted into her hair and his eyes on the cudgel. “Easy, friend.”

Javert moved. The man saw the movement. He cried out and threw both his hands up to protect his head -- _too late and too slow,_ Javert noted with grim satisfaction. But the man ducked quickly and the cudgel caught him a less than solid blow across the temple. He spun halfway around, puppet-like, before falling; one limp arm splashed down in a puddle while the rest of him landed in soiled snow. Javert raised the cudgel and swung again, this time bringing it down into the fallen man's ribcage. He could feel bones break at impact. Then sickness overtook him and he stumbled back against the wall. 

The girl was clinging to the railing. Her face looked purple in the shadows. 

“Mademoiselle,” he whispered.

On the ground, the man groaned softly. 

She was crying as she tugged down the hem of her dress. Her face dripped wetness and she rubbed desperately at her mouth with a sodden sleeve and spat and spat into the trammeled snow. 

Javert looked from her to the man on the ground, whose cock hung lewdly exposed above his lowered trousers. It was shiny and blood-streaked and still half-swollen.

“Mademoiselle," he said. "I--” 

She turned on him and he fell silent. Hatred burned in her glare, unquenched by the tears that tracked down her cheeks. She was still rubbing at her mouth with a red, childlike hand. He took a step toward her, but she cried out and drew back. 

“Stay away from me! Bastards!” She clutched her torn dress together at the collar and continued to back away. Javert could not think what to do. She withdrew further down the alley, not taking her eyes from him, and when she was a fair distance away she turned and ran with a hobbled jerking gait toward the Avenue des Comptes. Her steps were ragged and uneven, and plumes of slush dashed up from her light boots as she went. 

The man at his feet groaned and stirred. His slick bloody cock winked up at Javert through its one leering eye.

Javert looked at it. He could imagine it in his mouth, pushing. He could feel the shape of it, the smooth weight of it thrusting deep, too deep, clogging his throat. He could taste the viscous white fluid, hard to swallow because it clung in the mouth so that even hours later, even months later, its residue remained. He spat on the ground. He could feel cock pushing into his mouth and he could feel it ripping into his hole, tearing him open and burning inside of him. He could not get away from it, that cock. It owned him. It had taken him over and he could not escape. He began to gag, and he spat again and again but the taste of cock remained. He staggered backward. Gagging. Burning. Inside him. He recognized the stench of the alley: it was the smell of men, their damp bodies pressed against his face and his haunches and between his thighs, his nose forced against their bellies to nest in their sweaty hair. 

“I’ll kill you,” he muttered.

He swung the cudgel down hard, so it struck the cobbles alongside the man’s ear and wet snow kicked up. The man groaned stuporously and pulled himself away a little, like a worm retracting from danger. Javert stepped over him and smashed the cudgel down on his other side. “You should be killed,” he said, louder. He could do it with one quick blow to the head, or, even better, twenty. He could smear the man's skull and its contents into the snow like pulp. This would not end the burning or set him free from the thick taste in his mouth and the stink in his nostrils, but it would provide him, perhaps, a moment of relief. Even if it was fleeting, there would be satisfaction. 

Disgusted by the flaccid, bloody cock, he grabbed the man by the coat and hauled him over so he lay chest down. He was careful to avoid touching any of the bare skin, which looked wet, clammy, and revolting. Now the man’s ass jutted up at him, red and bare. Javert gripped his cudgel. He pressed the tip of it against the soft flesh. He did not press down. But he could. He would. Why shouldn’t he? 

The man whimpered and moaned. 

Javert pulled away the cudgel. Never mind. He had another use in mind for it. He would not need it much longer. The sight of the man's nakedness had awoken a terrible sickness within him. He felt feverish and driven. There was someplace he must go; he realized; there was something he must do. All other considerations were forced into second place. Even this criminal must be left where he lay, to wait for justice.

It took only an instant to cross the limp wrists behind the back and apply the manacles. Then Javert stood and glanced up at the night sky. There were still many hours til morning. A rim of clouds had moved in to cover the stars in the west over the sea, and a light chill breeze was blowing; the night was not as balmy as it had been.

Leaving the man where he lay, Javert set off down the alley. It was against all regulations to leave a prisoner unguarded and there was a part of him that felt sick to do it. His gut twisted in on itself. In fact he managed only a few dozen meters before he had to stop and bend over, heaving a clot of dense vomit into the snow. Then he wiped his wet forehead and resumed his journey. He felt better. The man would be found in the morning, or would stagger off somewhere if he recovered his senses before that, though with his bound hands he would not get far. The taste of vomit was a relief as it partly hid the thick, clinging taste of cock, though it did not altogether erase it. 

It was not a long walk, but it seemed to take hours. He would get this done, one last thing. Then he would resign. Finally he found himself in front of the stone steps and then before the door. The ram’s head knocker looked at him in mild surprise. He did not bother to try the lock; one blow from the head of his cudgel and he was stepping into the anteroom of the dark and silent house. Yes, this was the place. There was the sitting room where he had whimpered and pressed the whip into M. Madeleine’s hands. And there was the wall he had braced himself against. Here is where he had knelt at Madeleine’s command, opening his mouth for a thick cock, a mayor’s cock, the cock of his master. He retched and spat. Right over there, that was where M. Madeleine had thrown down his collar. A dog collar - one M. Madeleine had put on him in Paris.

In a frenzy he undid the buckle of his stock and ripped it off. The feel of it repulsed him and made him deeply ashamed. It was a thing of horror. Yet, he remembered, he had been so proud to receive it. He had exposed his throat to M. Madeleine and been filled with joy when the man he thought of as his master had stroked his neck gently and set it in place.

He gripped the leather so hard it cut into his palm. He must get rid of it - yet he could not find the will to throw it down. 

Thrusting it deep into his coat pocket, he strode down the hall. There was the door to the spare room where he had spent the night on his knees. He had prayed in front of his master’s lash, still wet with his own blood. _Respect, obedience, service!_ Could he have been such a man as that? He clutched his belly and groaned aloud. The groan threatened to became a howl of rage, but he silenced himself. He had not come here to cry and make futile noises. There was only one answer to the burning. It was no longer so much his hole that burned, but something worse - his mind and soul. It was shame that burned in him, shame and fury beyond bearing.

Ahead he saw the door he wanted, and burst through it. 

Madeleine was sitting up straight in bed, clutching a flint; a short candle was sputtering to life on the bedside table. He was staring back at Javert with a wide-eyed haggard look. His nightshirt was open at the throat. Wooly white curls stood out thickly all over his head.

Javert bared his teeth. A stray thought struck him and made him grin. _Wolf at your door!_

Then he raised his cudgel.


	24. sacrifice

Madeleine clutched the flint. A haze of sleep still clung to him, and he fought to make sense of what he saw. Framed in the doorway was the tall man, lips drawn back, cudgel held high. Madeleine’s thoughts went immediately to his rifle. It was cleaned and ready but far out of reach, near the front door, under the peg where his greatcoat hung. 

“Son of a whore,” Javert hissed. Madeleine's hair stood on end. He could see the grin on the other man’s face: a beast's grin, or a madman's. 

He understood the situation at once. Javert was here to kill him. Madeleine had no doubt of it. Had he not stood once just like this, his thorn stick raised over a sleeping man? 

Sliding himself little by little toward the edge of the bed, he put out his hands slowly, palms up. “I am not armed,” he murmured.

Javert laughed bitterly. He advanced with the stick raised.

Javert was well trained in combat; Madeleine had seen his skills on the practice field. His strength, however, was no more than that of an average man -- and Madeleine too had been a fighter once, when he was known by a different name. If he lunged, he could wrest the cudgel out of Javert’s hands and save himself. 

The bishop, of course, would not have done that. 

_\--You are putting me to bed in a room beside your own! How do you know that I have never murdered anyone?_  
_\--That is God’s affair._

He looked at Javert. In the man’s face burned madness and murderous intent. Suffering and rage were there as well, and above all the bewilderment of a wretched captive animal facing its tormenter.

Madeleine thought of the choices before him. He could fight or he could submit to what was coming. If he fought he would likely win. But in truth, was this not the end he had longed for? How much longer must he endure the drudgery of endless penitence, the solitary toil up a mountain whose summit remained always out of sight. The night on the docks when the smuggler had rushed him with a raised pistol, he had seen his release flying toward him. He had stood fast and welcomed what was coming. Only the miraculous appearance of Javert bursting out of the darkness had stayed the hand of fate. But tonight Javert had returned. If he swung the cudgel down and Madeleine did not resist, would this not merely set his fate back on its preordained course? That could not be wrong. 

Or-- would God, knowing his dark longings, blame him for giving up his life so easily?

Torn between his two choices, he could seize on neither of them. His mind, in this moment of crisis, went blank. He was not fearful but his thoughts were paralyzed. His eyes went wide and witless as he stared up at the armed man before him. 

Javert made an inarticulate noise of rage. He was still holding rigid in the posture of attack and now he began to shake all over. A moan broke from him, rising and rising into a howl, drawn out, holding all the anguish of a tormented human soul. His trembling arm swung the cudgel back. Madeleine tensed for the killing blow but did not lift his hands.

The cudgel began its descent. Madeleine trembled and closed his eyes.

A splintering crash burst around him.

There was no pain at all.


	25. into the hills

Madeleine slowly raised his head. He was, against all his expectations, still alive. Javert was standing over him, eyes still aflame with the savage light that often marks a lunatic, but his wolfish grin was gone. The two men stared at each other, motionless, for a long moment, and the only sound in the room was their rapid breaths. It was Javert who broke the spell. With a snarl of frustration he hurled his cudgel against the wall, spun about, and fled from the room. His harsh footsteps crashed down the hall. The front door banged once. Then again. Then all was silent. 

Recovering from his shock, Madeleine leaped up. He cursed as a sharp pain flared through his hand. It was bleeding, and in an instant he saw why. His bedframe was cracked, the long side board dented down into a wide V where it had been struck, and ragged spikes splintered up and inward at the center. He had put his hand down on one of them and punctured his flesh. 

He found the front door banging in the wind. It, too, was splintered and the latch useless. “Javert!” he yelled. Down the street a tall figure, outlined in silver light, was striding away. A stiff wind caught at Madeleine's nightshirt, making it billow and flaying his skin like the cut of a lash. 

Ducking back into the house, he yanked on his trousers and then his boots over bare feet, and grabbed his greatcoat off the peg. There was no time to light a lantern. Even at this late hour, fortunately, lamps still lit a few windows along the street and joined the moon in holding back the depths of night. He hurled himself out the door. Far off down the street, in the direction of the Chorins', he could make out the dark erect line that was Javert. He ran. 

The weather had been mild earlier that evening and his boots sloshed through slush and puddles; however, the temperature had dropped markedly and winter had again closed its fist on the city. The puddles were ice-crusted and the air frigid enough to burn in his chest. Half the sky was bedded with greasy clouds. They strained toward the moon, which bobbed just outside their grip, stretching toward it as if eager to seize and drown its light. The wind came in brief heavy bursts down from the northern hills, roaring around the house corners, making the wet branches of the small city trees whip each other frantically. Madeleine had lived long enough in this country to recognize all the signs of a rising storm. 

Though no longer accustomed to hard labor he was still a strong man, and he was closing on Javert. The other man was thrusting himself forward at a good clip and did not look back. Likely he did not realize he was being pursued. He would soon turn down the Chorins’ street. Madeleine did not know what he would say when he had run Javert down, but that was something he could think of when he caught his breath and they were both inside and warm. His greatcoat was a good one, but he sorely missed the accustomed layers of underclothes and shirt and waistcoat. His nightshirt was worthless against the cold, and the wind blew in through his coatsleeves and under his collar. A few snowflakes were beginning to spiral down. He put his collar up and thrust his hands deep into his pockets, but found it too hard to move quickly like that and so took them out again. 

Javert did not slow or turn at the Chorins’ corner. Nor did he look back. He kept north with the same ground-eating stride. Madeleine followed, puzzled and uneasy. There was nothing this way, for the road dwindled into disuse here at the edge of town, and the only structure was an abandoned tenement which had stood roofless and decaying for as long as Madeleine had lived here. It marked the far dark edge of civilization in Montreuil, for beyond its neglected walls, the cobbled street became no more than a rough dirt road which tapered off into a simple footpath rising into to the rugged lonely hill-country beyond. 

Javert’s dark form could be seen, barely, slinking past the tenement. Madeleine, his breath coming in hard gasps, hurried after.

Javert’s coat was black, as was Madeleine’s own. As they left behind all the lights cast by men's artifice and moved out into the landscape lit only by God, Javert merged into the night. In the darkness, Madeleine could barely make out his own feet. The ground below him started to rise. He understood that he had reached the footpath and was beginning his ascent into the hills. Under a thin rim of ice, the path was deep in mud and sucked at his boots. Though he could see little he was able to stay on the path -- for every time he strayed, frosted grass crunched underfoot. Where was Javert headed? Above them was only a rude, rough land worked by hard men who rarely came down to the city. They toiled in isolation, beating their fists against the bleak and merciless honesty of wind and soil. Many of the farms had been abandoned in recent years, Madeleine had heard. The growing seasons had been poor of late, and many farmers had left the heights to take up the yoke of city life. The wilderness would not take long to creep back into the abandoned holdings, erasing all the years of human labor. 

The rising slope and uncertain footing slowed his pace; also his throat burned and the wind made his eyes water. It had picked up, as had the snow, and he stuffed his hands back in his pockets. He was not even sure Javert was ahead of him. He squatted and peered down, tracing the icy mud with his fingers. Yes, here it was: bootprints, sized for a man, their sharp outlines attesting to their freshness. 

“Javert!” he shouted. “Javert!”


	26. a fitting end

Valjean tracked Javert up the hillside along a mud path quickly disappearing under sheets of gathering snow. Occasionally he knelt to feel for Javert’s bootprints. It was slow going. The wind picked up and came in sharp gusts directly down the slope. The snow continued to thicken until it made a slurry of the air. He pulled his coat around him and cursed the thin fabric of his nightshirt. Where was Javert going? Somewhere above reared the dark cliffs that on bright days were visible from town. He could not see them now. From Montreuil they had always looked hulking and treacherous; no place for a man who valued his safety. Madeleine shuddered and pressed on.

He set his feet one after the other. His legs ached, but at least his good boots kept out the snow. The mud of the path was becoming slick as it froze, and more than once his feet went out beneath him so he landed chest-down and breathless, the coarse oaths of Toulon coming to his lips. The barrage of swirling flakes redoubled. Soon he could see no farther than a few feet around him in every direction, so that at each step his whole world seemed no larger than a small cell. He was entombed by snow and lightlessness. With no familiar sights to guide him, and the cold beginning to dull his wits, his thoughts turned morbid. More than once he had to remind himself firmly that he was not dead and this was not hell. 

How far ahead could Javert be? On the level streets of town, Madeleine had been closing the distance between them, but here on this rough slope he had had no sign of the other man. The bootprints under the snow were becoming shallower as the soft mud turned stiff with ice. Soon the mud would be frozen solid and then Javert would leave no mark in it. Madeleine scanned the snow ahead for tracks, but none were visible. He turned and surveyed his own bootprints behind him. He could see no farther than two meters back, where already the edges of his tracks had been filed into softness by the harrying wind. As he watched, sheets of powdery snow raced before the gusts, filling in the depressions and obliterating his track before his eyes. He stared farther down into the darkness below, hoping to make out the streetlamps of Montreuil. He thought he could make out a few hazy points of light that might illuminate the way back home, but he was not sure if these were real or a trick played by his squinting eyes. What was he doing here? It was madness - Javert's madness, and his own. It would be a worse madness to go further on such a night. Yet Javert was up here somewhere in this forlorn place, and he could not turn back without him. Grimly, he set his face again against the slope and against the wind. He sent up a prayer towards God, with little hope that it would reach Him. 

“Following me,” snarled a voice at his ear.

He was so startled that he drew back with a cry. Before he could steady himself he was struck in the throat and fell, gasping, flat on his back. 

Javert towered over him, tall as a giant from this vantage point, his face obscured by the night and swirling snow. Madeleine scrambled back up to his feet. His throat ached where the blow had caught him. Even if he had thought of words to say, he was not sure he would be able to speak them. 

“Looking for your lost pet, were you?" Javert sketched an elaborate, mocking bow. "Are you wanting your cock sucked tonight, monsieur le maire?”

Madeleine found his voice. “Javert. The storm! We have to get back. Come with me!” The wind rose suddenly in a scream so that he had to shout to make himself heard. He straightened, gasping. “Come down! It's bound to get worse. Come to my home. Come now.”

A grin scissored across Javert’s face. “I think not. I prefer it here. I plan to stay a while.” His features seemed lined up wrong, like a broken plate that had been mended carelessly. His eyes were bright with humor.

“Forgive me, Javert. Please. I wronged you; I know that. Listen to me. Tell me what you want. I swear, I will--“

Javert’s laugh grated like two rocks ground against each other. “Such a civilized man, you are. How well you treat your dog.”

“You are not my dog; you are—“ He reeled backward as a hard backhand caught him across the face. In the dark, he had not been able to see it flying towards him. He clapped a hand to his mouth and spat, tasting blood.

“No more civility,” Javert hissed. His coat was askew and open at the neck but if he was cold he gave no sign of it. “No more gifts for the pet. No more clothes for him. No more pretty collars for his neck. Look around you, monsieur le maire. None of your fine gestures are worth anything here.”

“Javert, please!" He had been frightened only for Javert, but now, with his cheek smarting and the other man leering in front of him, he understood the danger to himself. "Just come back to town. We can talk then. I tell you, I will do anything to set things right.”

“Anything! Anything, really?” The face that lurched closer was no longer quite human. “Excellent! Get your clothes off, then!” Javert's peculiar laugh sounded again, and Madeleine shivered at the sound. “Get to it, dear monsieur mayor; we want to see the goods, don’t we? Don’t we!” Madeleine stared. He still had his hands up in case Javert meant to strike at him again. He hesitated. Then a heavy fist crashed down on his shoulder and he fell to his knees. “Set things right!” Javert screamed. “Do it! Open wide!” Again came the terrible laughter.

Madeleine shivered violently. His knees ached against the frigid ground. He lowered his head as a sharp gust heaved a load of icy pellets, hard as frozen sand, against the exposed skin of his face. Snow had now seeped into the top of his boots and was needling his ankles with pain. His hat was knocked from his head and a fist closed in his hair. “Do it!" Javert shouted again. "Strip off your clothes. Suck my cock!” 

Unreality settled over Madeleine. Was this to be his fate? After so many years living on his knees, would he now die on them, naked in this frozen Hell with Javert's cock down his throat? He recoiled with horror at the thought. What were his choices? To fight? Impossible: he owed Javert. He was very tired, anyway. His mind was sluggish; his arms and legs were becoming heavy. Javert had the right to claim his debt. Madeleine did not want to fight, but only to rest, for he had been climbing a long way and he was weary and not as young as he had once been. It was too late and he was too cold. He was ready for it to be over. Javert too was likely to die here, with his trousers around his knees, while the wilderness reduced them both to bloodless ice sculptures jutting out of the landscape. 

Wearily, he began unbuttoning his coat. His fingers were like frozen sausage and the thick gloves made the task more difficult. As the coat fell open, the snow stung his neck and the wind sliced through his nightshirt. His shivering was uncontrollable. With the careful movements of a drunk, he began to extract his arms from the sleeves, first the left, and then the right. It would be a painful death, he thought distantly, but a quick one. 

An animal cry broke from Javert. “Get up! Do you think me such a man as that?” Through his thick confusion, Madeleine thought could hear Javert gnashing his teeth in fury. “All my life I’ve commanded prisoners, criminals, men of such violence that they deserved nothing better – the cutthroats of the Rue Sixieme, the lifers in the bagne, the scum of the Paris streets -- and never, never did I use them like that. You think I am as vile as you? You dare? Get up! Get on your feet!”

The snow had not abated but the wind dropped for a moment and Madeleine was able to look up. Javert’s face was still obscured by the snow. His coat flapped at his legs, rising up into a strong black column. His gloved hands were clenched into fists. Above the hands, Madeleine could see only a blur in the darkness. 

“Get up! Get up!” Javert screamed. 

“Javert," he gasped. "Please. I won’t fight you.”

“You will. You owe me that much.” Javert leveled a kick into his ribs, knocking him breathless yet again. 

His thoughts were jumbled. It was difficult to remember why he had come here. The harsh snow scoured him raw. Yet it was all so very familiar. Hadn't he had knelt like this many times before in the snow, at the command of one guard or another? He had been kicked liked this, and spat on. Had been beaten on his bare back in winter, always for some trivial infraction or for nothing at all. He could make out little of the man in front of him, but his mind supplied the image. The uniform was blue; the buttons gleamed. There was a pistol at his belt, a whip in his hand, a sneer on his face. 

Yes: he knew this place well. “Nineteen years,” he whispered thickly.

“Get up,” Javert roared. “Stand and fight!”

 _“Nineteen years.”_

Still on his knees, he twisted to glance back down the hillside. There had been a city there once; or had he dreamt that? If it was still below him, he could see no sign of it: no light, no hint of humanity or warmth. The storm had wiped away everything but the wild snow-battered land he knelt upon and the guard who stood before him. The well-kept home, neat as a dollhouse, had been swept away like dust off a railing; also the mairie he dimly remembered, and the desk neatly piled with useless papers. The factory, the workers who touched their caps and murmured “M. Madeleine” in awed hushed voices to remind him of his current name. Digne too was gone, and the Bishop -- if indeed he had ever been anything more than the hallucination of a needy, desperate man. There were no churches left, no priests, no rosaries to clutch and pray to, no beggars to whom he might give alms in order to buy a few steps' passage along the path to some promised Heaven. Only the prison yard stretched around him. The black walls of Toulon rose to block out the light. The howl of the wind was one with the roar of the winter surf, and he tasted salt. 

He rose to a half-crouch. In a dangerous low voice he said, “You don’t want to fight me.” 

The guard laughed. “Correct. I want to kill you.”

“You’ll be disappointed.” The words were a little slurred. “It is not I who’ll die.”

“Yes – you are strong. I know this. You carried the body of Boudrillard up the street like a sack of clothes. While I -- I have been weak. So weak. But not tonight.”

With a snarl the guard leaped. Madeleine was ready. Tucking his chin into his collar and turning aside, he deflected the force of the attack and tried to seize the man - Javert? it was Javert, wasn't it? - by the arm. He got only cloth, and with a ripping sound Javert spun away. Tooth and claw they shredded each other then, lurching back and forth, tumbling down and then scrambling back up, with neither getting the upper hand. Javert’s elbow caught the edge of Madeleine’s eye and sent him spinning into the snow. A cry of triumph sounded above him and Javert’s weight fell across his chest, driving him down. But in close quarters it was Madeleine’s greater strength that told, and he bucked Javert off and thrust his fist upward into the other man’s throat. A choked wheeze sounded. Javert was on hands and knees now, no longer defending himself, only struggling to breathe. Madeleine regained his feet. Twice he kicked Javert in the chest. At the second blow, Javert groaned and fell over onto his back. His legs kicked weakly in the snow. 

The rush of activity had sent Madeleine's blood pumping hot through his veins. His thoughts had cleared. He looked about him. A bit of gray was visible to the east. The wind was a breeze only, and the flakes slanted as they fell but did not sting. Javert still lay face-up in the snow. Madeleine looked hard at him, and what he saw made him gasp. 

Gone was the dull-eyed slave who had followed him onto the coach from Paris. Gone was this the feral creature of the night who had leaped to save him on the night of the smugglers' attack. Javert now wore a face that stopped Madeleine's heart - not by its strangeness, but by its terrible familiarity. Its savage aspect, its bitter glint, its etching of pain and despair and surrender: all these made it recognizable to Madeleine. Long ago, he had seen such a face glaring out at him through a black glass pane. It had been in Digne: in the dark side window of a house along a cold withdrawing street, as he stumped by, bitter and forlorn, clutching his sack and stick. He had bared his teeth at the face, and it had mirrored the gesture instantly in savage mockery. The sight of it had filled him with rage. 

But looking down upon Javert tonight, he felt pity enough to cry. 

He knew this face and all that lay behind it - its anguish, its helpless humiliation and bitter dreams of vengeance. One of Javert’s gloves was gone, pulled off in their struggle. Madeleine saw, or thought he saw, the raw pink scar glowing in the darkness as it wrapped the other man's wrist. 

How had they come to this? Perhaps it was their similarities that had driven them here. Like two starved wolves hunting the same hard-edged territory of loss and fury, they had turned on each other, each seeking to defend his own pitiable holding. They had dragged each other out here into the wilderness – beyond the edge of everything, where no light shone and no one would rescue them. But it was all a mistake. He saw that now. It was tragic, and perhaps it was too late.

“Javert,” he whispered. Javert snarled up at him. “Please.” He stretched out his hand. “Enough of this. Let me help you. We’ll get down from here. There’s still time.” Twining around them, the wind moaned like a wounded man.

“You’d like that,” Javert spat. He looked up, his gaze bitter, but he did not lift his head. Snow was falling into his open eyes but he lay unblinking like a man already dead, his mouth drawn back in a suffering grimace. “To say you’ve won - to lead me back home on a chain.” He scrabbled in his coat pocket with his bare red hand, and brought something out which he hurled at Madeleine. It fell a few feet short and landed harmlessly in the snow: a small object, innocent, no more than a strip of leather with a silver buckle. Madeleine felt only grief and regret. He was searching for words to say this, but he could not find them. So moved was he, that he closed his eyes. They were tearing, and not just from the wind.

But hearing a sudden rush of sound, he opened them again - just as Javert surged up and forward in a mighty lunge. Madeleine threw up his arms to block, but he was an instant too late. Javert’s bare fist caught him across the temple. A black shade came down, and he fell.


	27. long journey back

His head was throbbing.

The sky was dark and thick and he could see nothing. It could have been black earth he was staring into, as in a grave, but the crunch of ice at the back of his neck proved he was on his back, staring up at heaven. If indeed there was a heaven, here.

His ears were ringing and he was shivering uncontrollably; the shivering was increasing the pounding in his head. Still, shivering was itself a good sign. In the Bagne in winter, when men dropped like flies and were hauled away, the shivering ones usually returned to the work crew within a few hours. It was when a man toppled and lay calm and still in the bitter air, that he did not come back.

The rim of gray in the eastern sky had not extended its reach while he'd been unconscious, so it must be that little time had passed. His mind turned sluggishly like a frozen cart-wheel. He was still in the mountains and the storm was still raging and, he remembered with a sudden bolt of nausea, Javert wanted him dead. Perhaps this was just. But he could not allow it, because his death would mean Javert’s as well. And Javert must not die. They were alike, the two of them, bonded by the same scars, and Javert was his to protect. Amid his slow cold thoughts, this knowledge alone shone clear: Javert must not die. 

He lurched to his feet, hoping no gloved black fist was still waiting to rear out of the darkness. The wind-blasted snow drove against the raw exposed skin of his face. No fist struck. He squinted against the gale. He was able to see a little farther through the gloom than before. Whether this was due to the progress of dawn, or to a thinning of the clouds before the moon, he did not know. 

Some meters away, a black shape lay on the ground, face down. Madeleine, chest constricting, stumbled toward it. “Javert!" he yelled. "Get up!” But the words emerged slow and half-formed, no more than grunts. His lips and tongue had thickened and would not obey him. In mounting horror he fell to his knees beside the prostrate form and wound his numb hands into the cloth of Javert's coat. With all his remaining strength he hauled the man upwards. 

The coat, light as an abandoned skin, came up with ease as he stumbled backward. Below it lay nothing but dark snow. Madeleine stared down for a long moment, bewildered. Javert was not here. He was somewhere else. Where could he be? Somewhere out in the vastness of the hostile hills. Madeleine looked about him. Coatless, Javert could not have gotten far. Nor would he last long. 

Stumbling up, he shouted Javert’s name four times, once in the direction of the spiritless dawn and then in the other three directions of the compass. Only the wind answered – a lonely sound of loss and devastation. He lurched up the slope. He guessed that Javert, seeking his own extinction, would have chosen that direction over any other. Madeleine drove himself onward, thoughtlessly - his wits slowed by the cold and the blow to his head and by his fear. Only when his eye happened to fall on a rough, boot-sized depression in the snow did it occur to him that Javert might still be tracked. But even as he watched, the snow blew and skittered, and the wind erased that slender hope. Helplessly he scanned the ground, but the snow revealed no secrets.

He clutched Javert’s discarded coat to his chest. It had stiffened and held no warmth; whatever of life's heat Javert had shared with it, had long since fled. Still he clung to it as if it might give him comfort. 

“Javert! Javert!”

The snow and wind closed around his voice, and there was no answer. 

He felt deja vu - for he had been in such a hellish place before, searching desperately in darkness for a fallen man. He had failed to save Boudrillard. His efforts had come too late and had been no comfort to the widow, whom he had last seen sobbing in her mother's arms beside her husband's casket. 

The body of Boudrillard had been warm and pliant in his arms when he carried it up the street to the death-wagon. Javert’s body would be cold. That was how this night would end: he would return from the dark wilds, back to the lights of the town. He who had gone forth unburdened, following a living man into the storm, would return bearing a rigid, grotesque corpse upon his shoulder. 

The ice-specked air burned inside his chest as he choked back a sob. His legs went weak. Still he tottered forward.

A hulking cluster of boulders lay up the slope like group of fists thrust rudely upward. Their crests, like the hills above, were thickly whitened - but on their downward side, sheltered from the wind, there was only a bare dusting of snow. And in this shelter lay something terrible: the still, coatless body of a man.

With the shock of disbelief, Madeleine fell upon his find. Javert was curled on his side, his hands balled into fists, one gloved, one bare. He was no hallucination, but real and solid - but that was all Madeleine could ascertain. With the rising sun kept all but powerless behind the cloud-drowned sky, he could not judge Javert’s color or see whether the man’s chest still rose and fell. Tearing off a glove, he pressed two fingers against the pitiful bare throat, but his flesh was by now insensate as wood - if there was a pulse there, he could not find it. But it did not matter. Javert was alive. He knew it was so, because it must be so, because Madeleine could not in that moment bear for it to be otherwise. Therefore, it was so. Javert was alive and God was good. There would come an end to all this, and they would be warm and safe again and come out of the storm and back to the protection of the town. They would huddle before the leaping heat of a strong fire, and all would end well.

“Get up!” he yelled. “Up, get on your feet!”

The stiff shape that was Javert made no answer.

Madeleine's fingers, though they could feel nothing, were able to close like claws on Javert's waistcoat. He heaved him upward. Propping him against the nearest boulder, he continued to shout Javert's name while roughly thrusting the rigid arms back into the coat. The buttons, however, utterly defeated him. 

It was clear by now that Javert was not shivering.

Javert’s boots slid forward and he slumped halfway to the snow before Madeleine caught him and, in one Herculean movement, hoisted him over his shoulder. The inspector weighed no more than Baudrillard – most likely less – but already Madeleine’s strength was near its end, and still the snow blew and the treacherous slope lay below them. How great was the distance? He could not judge it. How could he accomplish the task that lay ahead? It was too much: too much for a man of fifty, a mayor, a respected man of affairs whose accustomed life involved sitting in offices, conversing politely, signing papers. The unfairness of his position struck him and made him suddenly furious. It was not right! It was too much! Long ago, when he was a beast in Toulon, he could have done it, but now--!

Something burst open inside Madeleine. With a surge of animal rage, he began to scream. The curses that tore the dawn were words never before heard from the lips of the gentle mayor. He dug his blocklike hands into Javert's coat, shaking him and gnashing his teeth. “ _And_ your sister! _And_ your mother! And may God damn you for eternity! Help me, you bastard! Help me!”

Cursing and shouting, frothing like a rabid beast, he turned himself sideways to the hillside so his left shoulder – the unburdened one – faced downward. He took the first step of his descent and planted his foot firmly, shifted his weight. He did it again. He was sobbing. "You! Imbecile! Son of a whore!"

The tide of oaths and curses, of bright raging desperation, moved him onward. He descended, step by step, centimeter by centimeter. His arms ached as he clung to his burden; his thighs howled with pain. He was not fast, but every step was bringing him closer to what was needed: warmth and light and rest. 

He had been making progress for some time when he took a hard tumble, his left foot shooting out unexpectedly. He needed his arms to protect Javert, and in consequence he took the jarring force of the fall entirely upon his own back. He lay with the breath knocked out of him and gazed back the way he'd come. The boulders, he now saw, were only a meager distance back. In all this time he had barely covered fifty meters. He was despondent. What was the use? At this rate, any life still flickering in Javert’s depths would be extinguished long before Madeleine got him in front of a fire. He hung his head and wept. Defeated, he let Javert's body slip from his leaden arms. Still roughly wrapped and belted into the coat, the body slid some ways down the slope and came to rest at an angle, one arm outflung. 

_At least that’s a few meters less I’ll have to haul him._

Madeleine, tears freezing on his cheeks, stumbled after him. He cursed Javert again and bent to him, but now his strength had ebbed so low that he hesitated, unable to summon the will to lift the burden to his shoulder. Instead he gave Javert a shove. The body turned a little as it slid, and Madeleine hobbled after it. He had expected it to move only a few paces but he watched with surprise as it picked up speed and coasted farther down the hillside. The snow was not thick here and a layer of ice lay beneath it. Javert's body traveled a good thirty meters before coming to rest. 

With a dull glimmer of hope, Madeleine put his hands to his collar and, in one great effort, tore his own coat free. He laid it down beside Javert and half-rolled, half-dragged the unresisting body to lie on top of it. He belted Javert in as best he could. He was sweating and the harsh wind lashed his damp flesh and set him shivering again – but he was on his feet, moving, struggling, keeping his blood hot and his heart pounding, and his physical efforts at least gave him the chance of staying warm. Javert, inert as a fallen statue, needed the coat more. 

Madeleine stood and gave the body a mighty push. It accelerated gently down the slope and this sight made something like exultation sing through him, temporarily beating back his fatigue. The wind had slackened, and the temperature must have risen somewhat - though Madeleine could feel no difference - for the gritty storm-driven seeds of ice had softened into a gentler fall of snow. He peered ahead into the dim shadows. Some distance down but closer than he'd thought, the little white-crowned housetops of Montreuil-sur-Mer were spread before him.

Madeleine had no idea how long he spent on the slopes, dragging and pushing Javert down from the hillside while every part of him throbbed with misery and was flayed by wind. It could have been less than an hour, or the customary twenty-year sentence in Purgatory. No clock exists that can measure time in such a place. As he descended with his charge, night ceded the sky to day, muddy grey replacing muddy black - a transformation so insignificant it barely deserved to be called morning. The hillside leveled gradually until it stretched out flat like the sweep of an arm. He turned to gape back at the way he had just come, and then swiveled slowly to gaze at the way ahead. With a start he recognized where he was: on the rough end of the road he had taken out of Montreuil earlier that night when he'd followed Javert past the edge of town. It seemed like years ago. He had been a different man then. 

And now? What was he now?

Exhaustion had stripped away all the layers of his different lives. He was no longer the invented saint called M. Madeleine, or the bitter, twisted creation of society called 24601. Bone-deep fatigue left him unable to be anything but his true self, the boy Jean who had become a man among the orchards of Faverolles: a man of simple thoughts and country decency, accustomed to hard work. His raw-scoured cheeks and chapped lips were the same ones he'd had as a youth laboring out of doors at his father's side. He was simply a man: tired beyond words, bearing a precious burden, coming home.

Ahead lay his city, where warmth awaited, where Mme. Chorin's fire would be going beneath her stew-pot and Magritte's men would be gathering in the station-house, and all the townspeople, shopkeepers and mothers and servants and gentlemen, would be rising to face the day. He hoisted Javert again to his shoulder. The inspector’s weight bore down on him. The body was unmoving, but he had no strength left for worry. He could see lantern-lights glowing in distant windows. His own home was somewhere up ahead, his office, his housekeeper who worried about what he ate for dinner. He was alive and he had brought Javert out of the storm. If he had been able at that moment to think - to string thoughts into words and words into speech - he might have breathed his thanks to God for Montreuil-sur-Mer, and for all the gifts he had been granted. 

Instead he heaved Javert a little higher, adjusting the man's dead weight. He turned down another street and continued his staggering strides. Not until he was before the Chorins' door, sagging against it as if he might never stand upright again, did he begin to shout.


	28. a fire in the hearth

Javert lay unmoving on his bed. Madeleine, his limbs stiff and his mind dull with fatigue, sat beside him staring into the fire. The flames hissed as they leaped, their aggressive strength mocking the stuporous weakness of the two men who languished in their light.

The pain in Madeleine’s fingers increased. He raised his hands mechanically to his lips and huffed on them with an open mouth.

“I've brought more wood!” called Mme. Chorin from the door. She pushed it open with her knee, staggering slightly as she entered with another armload of logs and kindling. “No, do not rise. My husband has gone for the doctor. Does M. Javert yet wake?” She knelt at the growing woodpile beside the hearth. When they had first entered with Javert -- M. Chorin supporting his shoulders and Mme Chorin taking the burden of his legs while Madeleine tottered behind them up the stairs, spent and useless - he had noticed for the first time that there was no wood in the room, and the hearth had clearly not been lit all winter. “He would never let me give him a fire,” Mme. Chorin had said, shaking her head; “nor would he take but the one blanket, no matter the cold.” 

They had laid Javert down carefully on the bed. The hateful black knapsack had been squatting there as always. Now it lay in a corner where Madeleine had hurled it. 

Mme. Chorin rose from the woodpile and came to stare into the still, waxen face of her rentier. “I have seen frost-sickness before,” she said. “I was raised in farm country, up in the hills, and many’s the man I saw brought home like this. You must not warm him too quickly. That pan of water by the fire will be the proper temperature by now. Dip cloths in it and lay them on his feet and hands.” She frowned. “But you, M. Madeleine. You are not well yourself. Let me see.”

Without waiting for an answer, she gently lifted his hands by the wrists and turned them palm-up. The fingers were scalded red and beginning to swell. She turned them over. The knuckles over his right hand were split, but there was little blood.

“Do they pain you greatly?”

“Only a little.”

“You lie, Monsieur,” she said, shaking her head. “These will return to health, but they will hurt for days to come. To think of going out in a winter storm in your nightclothes! Men are fools. But M. Javert owes you his life.” She pinched the rough cloth of his jacket. “I see my Pierre’s spare suit fits you well enough, though narrow in the shoulder. Never mind if it splits; it will be an easy thing to repair.”

Her homely face shone on him with a warmth greater than the fire’s. To sit indoors beside a hearth, bones aching from a hard day's struggle against the land, and to submit to a woman’s care-- He was stirred suddenly by the memory of times like this, long lost, when he had sat just so watching his sister stir the fire while the little ones tumbled at his feet. It was an old pleasure that awoke an ache within. 

“How can I repay your kindness?” he said.

“Chhh,” she scoffed. “We must look to M. Javert. His clothes are still wet. I will require your strength to lift him while I strip them off - if your hands can bear it.” 

Madeleine looked at the body. _Strip them off_ , she had said. Images rose before him. “No.” Seeing the puzzled look on the lady’s face, he added, with great misery, “He would not want it.”

He had spoken too forcefully perhaps, for Mme. Chorin continued to gaze at him oddly. “Well,” she said after a moment, “he is a private man; that is sure. But the waistcoat and boots? Surely that much he would allow. And the doctor will want to see his feet.” 

Madeleine considered, then nodded, and they bent to the task silently. He eased Javert’s still body up from the bed, allowing Mme. Chorin to slip his arms from the sleeves of the waistcoat. The man's white linen shirt clung to his skin and the small jutting points of his nipples were visible. Madeleine averted his eyes. He was unable to keep from remembering Javert as he'd looked in the Paris headquarters with his head hanging low, removing his clothes before three leering men. _Four,_ Madeleine corrected himself coldly. 

Mme. Chorin left with a promise to return soon with a hearty soup. Madeleine nodded gloomily.

After she was gone he looked around the room, seeing to keep his gaze distracted from the man in the bed. The knapsack drew his eyes but he looked quickly away. He then felt himself drawn to the sight of Javert’s bared feet, block-like and whitish as old snow where they lay atop the blankets. Around both ankles ran the scars that Madeleine knew too well. They were barely visible now against the pallor of the flesh. 

Javert stirred, his right hand twitching. His lips moved but no sound came out except a long exhalation. 

“Javert,” breathed Madeleine. 

The words were indistinct. “Devil take you all,” Javert muttered. And in the next breath, “Maman. Maman?” His face contorted briefly. Then it relaxed, all except the furrows between his brows. 

Madeleine bent and touched the deep-etched lines. “It’s all right,” he muttered. “It will be all right. See, there is a fire in the grate. We’ve survived all of it. We’ve come home.”


	29. prayers of the police of m-sur-m

The physician felt Javert's pulse, examined his hands and feet, and shook his head. “I can do no more than you are doing,” he said. “He should return to his senses over the next hours. He will most likely keep the fingers. Some of the toes, I am less sure of. How did this happen?”

“He was patrolling last night, and was caught outside in the storm.”

“A lucky thing you happened upon him, Monsieur le maire.” His eyes traveled over Madeleine’s ill-fitting attire. “His bed should be moved farther from the fire. See - he is flushed, and must not be allowed to sweat out his vital fluids. Also, let his feet hang down from the end of the bed so the blood can flow back into them. Do not chafe them, or the skin will blister. I will return this evening to see how he fares. If he wakes in the meantime, give him broth and tea.”

M. Chorin helped Madeleine move the bed and adjust Javert’s unresisting form, before he, too, took his leave. Madeleine sat down on the floor by the head of the bed and studied the face of the man who had been, long ago, his enemy. The square jaw was softened by dark stubble. A neat scar was visible on the side of his throat, just above the pulse. The lips, which had been blue when the Chorins laid him down, were back now to their normal color. Javert had been stirring more in the last hour and muttering occasionally - but still he showed no signs of awareness. It was kinder thus, Madeleine thought. Let him sleep.

He was tired but oddly full in his heart. In times long past when sickness came to his sister's cottage, he had sometimes stood vigil, just like this, over young Michel. The words of an old lullaby returned to him: _Sleep my child/ in Heaven’s light/ beneath the moon/ til morning comes._ His sister had sung it to the baby when she fretted. He could not recall the tune, for he had not thought of it in twenty-five years.

He had kissed Michel once while the boy slept, at the tender place on his forehead where his sand-colored hair curled into a widow’s peak. A stolen kiss; a thing he would never admit to. Michel had never known of it. His hand crept out now and, stealthy as a thief, touched the graying hair at Javert’s brow. The audacity of this action made him hold his breath. But still Javert did not wake. 

There was another knock at the door, forceful and sure. Magritte’s arrival was a surprise, but one look told Madeleine what had brought him. He was stern in appearance, and he held Javert’s cudgel in his hand. 

“Your housekeeper summoned the police this morning when she found your door forced and you missing. This was found beside your bed, Monsieur.”

“The inspector was at my home last evening, discussing affairs of the town. He may have left his stick.”

Magritte gazed at him steadily. “Your bed had a cracked beam.”

“It broke in the night while I lay on it. It is old and the wood is dry. As for the broken door, I noticed it in the night when I went out. I suppose the high wind had caught it and smashed the latch.”

“In fact, Monsieur, the door was forced from the outside - by a blow. The mark is clear.”

“Ah. Well, indeed, I must take the blame for that. I heard a cry in the street; I went outside; and in that instant the door blew shut behind me. It stuck somehow. I had no choice but to smash it open with a stick.” He smiled. The smile was strained. 

“And, having done so, you then went out again.”

“Yes. As I said, I thought I heard a cry. I found the Inspector in the snow some distance from my door.”

“And that was in the night, you say. But surely Monsieur, that would have been this morning at dawn - as Mme. Chorin informs me that you arrived here with the inspector shortly before six.”

Madeleine, after a pause, answered, “Yes.”

“And the fact that there were no tracks leading from your door, only those left by your housekeeper when she arrived this morning just after sunrise – you will now tell me that the wind had already swept them away, so quickly, before my men came to investigate?”

“That is the most reasonable explanation,” the mayor said quietly.

“Monsieur le maire." Magritte ran his hands through his hair. "There was other criminal mischief last night. A gentleman presented himself to the station-house this morning, his head swollen from a beating, his hands bound in manacles behind him. He claimed to have no memory of how this came to be - he was indulging at a café last night, he says, and awoke in his bed wearing them. But they are police manacles, standard issue; there is no doubt. You have no knowledge of this incident, I assume.”

Madeleine shook his head. “None whatsoever.”

Magritte stared down at Javert. His official bearing softened and he cleared his throat. Softly he asked, “Will he get well?” 

“I pray that he will.”

“I will add my prayers, and so will all the men. He has served the force well these past months.”

“Chief Inspector,” said Madeleine. “Not long ago you gave me your guess about his past and how he came to Montreuil-sur-Mer. You were not far wrong. He has suffered more than a man should. More than most men could bear.”

Magritte straightened and regarded the mayor gravely. “I understand that he is here at your pleasure, and that he came from Paris bearing the Silver Cross. I have seen his courage and dedication for myself. I can only respect such an officer. But an erratic man cannot work on the streets.”

“He was caught in a storm. I would not say this makes a man erratic. You say he has he done his work well thus far.”

“Thus far, yes.”

“Then wait to speak with him, before you decide his fate.”

“I take it then, Monsieur, that you vouch for him.” Madeleine nodded. Magritte paused a moment, then stood the cudgel in a corner by the hearth. “Give him this when he wakes, if you please. And tell him he has our prayers.”


	30. author's note

Note: By this time (5/20/14) I have rewritten so much of what went before that it's not quite the same story. Sorry! The events are the same but J's feelings, and the relationship between J and V, have changed. But it's better now, I think. Just wanted to let readers know.


	31. scars revealed

Mme. Chorin set the tray before him. “My friend Mme. Voisier has warned me about you,” she said, “but in my house, no one is permitted to take only water and a roll for breakfast.” She smiled. “It has meant a lot to us, you bringing around a rentier like M. Javert who can be depended on; and it is also thanks to you that my daughter's husband earns a steady living. In your factory," she added, answering Madeleine's puzzled look. "If not for you, we none of us would eat so well. We are simple people, but you will always be welcome at our table.” She took him carefully by the wrists and peered hard at the fingers, above and below, before nodding to herself and releasing them back to him. Her eyes twinkled. “Only let me know a little in advance, so I will have time to prepare the duck with the special sauce.”

He had already sunk his teeth into the bread, warm and soft, but now a low, unaccustomed chuckle found its way out of his throat. “May God bless you, Mme. Chorin.”

Her cheeks lifted and her smile became broad enough to include the room, the house, the street outside, the line of snow-clad hills beyond. “He already has,” she said.

When she was gone he stood at the window as he ate, trying to see the city through her eyes. The streets were dotted with people, dark as birds against the snow. A brace of children were hurling snowballs toward a spindly, threadbare tree. A little one was bawling. Mme. Choquet and Mme. Detourne, ancient enemies since their long-gone girlhoods, promenaded toward each other down the center of the street until, each noticing the other at the same moment, both gasped and clutched their bonnets and veered apart as if parted by a sudden sea. High above the town stood the mountains, bannered in white. If there were the bootprints of two desperate men in that pristine snow, or a lost glove, or the crumpled imprint left where a man had fallen, these things were not visible from Javert's window. A slash of black revealed the cliffs where no snow clung, where jagged rocks stood tall and fierce like sentinels.

A noise behind him made him turn. Javert lay in the bed, unmoving as before, but his eyes were open and his narrow gaze was fixed on Madeleine. 

“Javert." For a moment he could say no more than that, for his throat closed painfully upon itself. A wave of dizziness struck him and he had to put his hand against the glass for balance. It was what he had hoped for, but the shock of it made him doubt his own eyes. Javert lived. He had returned to the world. God was good.

God was good.

It took effort to make the words come. "You're awake,” he managed at last, swallowing hard.

Javert looked at him, and Madeleine was sure those eyes missed nothing, that they registered the rumpled cut of his borrowed clothes and the aching signified by his bent back, the swollen bruise at his temple and the joy now raising up his soul. “Are you in pain?” he asked.

It was a foolish question. Javert continued to stare at him, his gaze inscrutable. 

“The doctor was by. He says you will get well but you must stay off your feet for some time. It is all right; the Chorins will see to it you have all that you need. Look, Mme. Chorin has brought wood enough to keep a fire in your hearth for a week. She is downstairs now; she will fetch you a breakfast suited to royalty; are you hungry? Do you need anything? I will be happy to—“ He stopped. Javert merely watched him still, and against that silent, waiting gaze, Madeleine was embarrassed by his own nattering. He went abruptly to the corner of the room and brought forth the cudgel. 

“Inspector Magritte returned this earlier. He sends his prayers for your recovery. And I-- I told him nothing about last night.”

Still the eyes watched him.

“I have sinned against you.” He bowed his head and spoke in a low voice. “On the coach. And when you first came to Montreuil. I am sorry for it. I understand why you came to my home last night with the cudgel. I understand your hatred of me.” And he added, even more quietly, “The same as I once felt toward you.”

Javert’s lips parted and he seemed about to speak. Madeleine waited and gazed at the floor, prepared to receive another torrent of recriminations such as he had heard in the hills. He would accept whatever abuse was heaped on him. He was only glad that God in his mercy had given him another chance - after so many chances missed - to finally understand, and set things right. 

Javert’s voice rasped. He said, “There is a man.” 

These were not the words Madeleine had expected, and he looked up. Javert had turned his head and was now staring fixedly at the ceiling.

“The police must be informed,” he continued. “They should seek him at his residence. If he is not found there, they should look near the Avenue de la Victoire.” He cleared his throat but his voice remained rough as sand. “His name is Bamatabois; his residence is in the Rue Chanson - the last house, I believe. He will be found in handcuffs. He must be taken to the jail or, if he is ill, to the hospital.”

How like Javert to think of duty first, even at a time like this! “You need not worry,” Madeleine assured him. “Magritte spoke of him. He presented himself at the station-house this morning.”

“Tell them he must be taken into custody. The crime is unlawful congress. The woman protested - and there was a witness to it, who will testify before the court.”

“All right - I will have a boy sent to the chief inspector with your message.” 

Javert continued. “Have him carry this message as well; that there is a second man to be arrested. The charges are to read as follows: Unlawful entry. Bodily assault. Assault upon the person of a magistrate. Destruction of the property of a citizen. Also, dereliction of duty.” He frowned. “That is all I can recall at present. Additionally, I insist that you dismiss me from my post immediately. Please forgive the irregularity of this request, but it cannot wait.” He began to struggle against the blankets, but after raising himself halfway up he winced and fell back upon his elbows, trembling.

“Javert,” said Madeleine. “No.”

“You will please dismiss me from my post now, M. le maire.” Javert's face was rigid and entirely composed. Only a twitch at his jaw gave away that he was flesh, not wood. 

“I wronged you,” Madeleine murmured. “In Paris, and on the coach, and all these past months.”

“Please.” The chill mask of Javert’s countenance did not falter as he averted his face. “Do not speak of it.”

“Any recompense you would exact from me, I will gladly give--”

“Dismiss me!” Javert roared.

“I cannot! That– that is not justice!”

“Justice!” At this, the other man began to laugh. Then he stopped as suddenly as he had started, and wearily turned towards Madeleine. “And when I raised my cudgel to kill you, was that justice? Answer carefully, Monsieur. Because seeing you here, alive and in my quarters” -- and here he drew his lips back like a wolf – “I am finding myself inclined to try again.” 

“I cannot judge you. You were not in your right mind, and it was my treatment that drove you to—“

“Ah, the man of mercy!” With these words, he heaved himself upright in the bed. “Yes, M. le maire; I have seen your mercy. And tasted it. Have I not?” He glanced down, and seemed to notice for the first time his bare mottled feet protruding at the end of the bed. After this, he looked around with a perturbed air until his gaze came to rest upon his boots where they had been thrown down, beside the fire. He began to push aside the blankets that covered him. Despite Madeleine’s protests, he then put his feet on the floor and with a grimace, and using the headboard as a support, pulled himself up. He was slow in straightening himself, but eventually he stood erect and faced Madeleine squarely. “Please excuse me,” he said in a chill, civil voice. “I am not dressed. I must ask you to leave.” 

Madeleine looked toward the door, and back at the man before him. He was so thin that it made Madeleine ache to look upon him; the outline of his ribcage was visible beneath his shirt. In the light of the leaping fire, his emotions were written upon his face. Both his pride and the wounds to his spirit stood forth, as clearly marked to Madeleine’s eye as the marks upon his wrists. 

Madeleine said, "Javert." There was more he could have said, but he had never been a man of words. Without taking his eyes off the other man, he bent. Slowly, he unlaced and drew off his right boot. He and Javert continued to hold each other's gaze; neither spoke. He removed his other boot and stood in his stocking feet. 

He reached next for the buttons of his waistcoat. 

“What are you doing?” said Javert coldly. Then in a low snarl he said, “Monsieur, I ask you again to leave so that I may dress.” 

He was still holding himself tall, though his bare feet looked raw and damaged as they bore up under his weight, upon the rough stone floor. Hatless, with haphazardly-cropped hair sticking up in patches, with cheeks bruised and windscrubbed, he looked not city-bred but lean and savage. 

Madeleine, bootless now and in his shirtsleeves like Javert, sank down upon his knees. Slowly he reached for the collar of his shirt. “In the mountains you ordered me to do this,” he said. “I would have done it then. I will do it now, if it is your wish.”

A quiet joy was blossoming in his chest as he unfastened the top button and then the next. Last night, Javert's command that he should kneel and strip had seemed a final madness, Lucifer's last joke at the end of a life blistered by torment and toil. Now the path before him was clear. The humiliation Javert had suffered must be righted and there was no other way than this. He would humble himself before Javert. He would show his scars, and Javert would see everything, understand everything at last. Madeleine would be destroyed, Valjean resurrected - and then Javert would lead him away in chains, just like another man who long ago was led to Calvary. 

Javert was looking at him, baring his teeth in a snarl. “You are Monsieur le maire,” he said. “Please get up. This is unseemly.”

Madeleine did not get up. He unfastened his cuffs, though his damaged fingers protested at the fiery pain of forcing the tight-set buttons through their holes. He said, the words coming slow, “I wronged you. I have nothing to offer you except the truth, and my life. They are both yours to take. I am not Madeleine. I have had no right to call myself your master."

He called upon his courage; he sent up a prayer. And then he pushed his sleeves up high, way up to his forearms. And then he smiled - for at that moment the face of the bishop returned to him; not the angry eye that had so often glared at him these past four years, but Pere Bienvenu's face as he had seen it across the dinner table so long ago in Digne: shining with innocence and welcome, as warm and bright as the silver settings that glowed in the candlelight.

“Look at me," he said simply. "You can see it now, can you not? I wore irons and took the lash; half my life I spent in chains. I am not who I pretend to be.”


	32. recognition

Javert recoiled. His lips parted but he said nothing; a look of wariness, of suspicion, darkened his face. He took a halting step forward on his wounded feet and peered at Madeleine’s wrists. He snarled, almost to himself: “What does this mean?”

His answer ready, Madeleine tilted up his face. He had had a long time to think: first on the icy slope above the town while he fought the storm to bring Javert's inert body home, and again today throughout his long vigil at Javert’s bedside. Now that it was too late to turn back he was not sorry, and only a little frightened. “You can see for yourself. You can see I am telling the truth.”

“Those are the marks of manacles,” Javert said, frowning. His gaze kept shifting from one wrist to the other, and then to Madeleine’s face. “How can this be. Those marks were years in the making. You--" He choked a little, and said, "You are Monsieur le maire.” 

“I was twenty-seven years of age when they put the chains on me.” He spoke the words gently. He remembered the terrible day in the jail-yard, five days after his sentencing - the day the wagons pulled up outside the doors and the convicted men were herded out to begin their journey. A new tenderness came over him as he remembered. His soft compassion embraced the memory of not just the young man he had been, but all those who had been present in the yard: the groaning, teeming mass of chained unfortunates cursing and cringing as cudgel-blows fell among them; the guards, tight-lipped, who swung their clubs and shouted orders, the smith who struck the blow at his neck, that sealed his fate. He had cried out when the reverberations from the hammer shook his bones, and then collapsed in sobs, clutching the iron collar. "I knew-- I believed-- that I was walking alone into Hell, with no one to know and no one to care, and no hope of return. I did not think that I could live through it.” He wanted to reach back now, to that young man, and tell him the beautiful secret he had not then understood: that God walked beside him, no matter how black his fate. 

A flicker showed in Javert's eyes, but there was no change in his cold frown. He seemed wary, as if suspecting that a species of trick was being played at his expense. After a long moment, he said in his guttural grunt: “Let me see your ankles.”

He had dropped the "Monsieur," Madeleine noted. 

Madeleine remained on one knee but brought the other foot out in front of him so Javert could see it. He did not need to pull up the leg of M. Chorin's trousers. They stopped well above his ankle.

Javert’s breathing had become audible, a little ragged, and signs of mental disturbance were evident. There was a flashing wildness coming over him, a dangerous look. 

He said, “Take off your shirt.”

Madeleine obeyed - though he found it hard, once again, to work the buttons with his burning fingers. Javert watched him, unmoving. Finally Madeleine peeled the shirt open. He eased himself out of the sleeves. He was afraid but there was a rising excitement, a wild hot lightness surging through him. He had been fourteen when he touched a girl’s breast for the first time, down in the long autumn grasses behind the cottage, terrified that someone would see – and it had felt like this; the same breathless terror, the same transporting joy. He closed his eyes and let it take him over. He knew what Javert would want from him, and he was eager to give it. He did not wait for the next command, but turned himself slowly to display his back. He could feel Javert’s hot gaze. He bent his head and waited in all humility, willing Javert to take what he needed: to take whatever solace that he could, in what he saw there.

Soon, he knew, he and Javert would be ripped apart. This moment of revelation was all they would ever have, and it would have to sustain Madeleine through all the years to follow. He had no illusions about what would come next. Javert would claim his vengeance. Magritte would arrive with the summons and armed men at his back. Then he would suffer all the faces of the townsfolk turning away from him, the trial, and last the iron collar again around his neck. Despite his fear, he felt unburdened, as if - for the first time - he could embrace the life that stretched before him. It was a wonderful thing he had been granted: the chance to sink so that Javert could rise.

Feeling Javert's silent gaze on his naked skin, he stretched out his arms to the sides, palms upward. The irons would be heavier than he remembered because his strength was less than it had once been. But his soul would be like this, now and always: light as silk. 

“You have worn chains,” said Javert, uncertainly. "You as well."

Then came a heavy shuffling of feet, and the groan of wood. Madeleine turned, not rising from his knees. Javert had fallen back on the bed and now sat on the edge of the stuffed pallet, and he was looking not at Madeleine but at the wall. Or rather, through it. 

“They whipped you,” he muttered. His eyes were fierce and faraway.

“Sometimes,” said Madeleine. It was not easy to speak of. "Sometimes-- sometimes it was a rod of wood; thin, and as long as a man’s arm.” How well he remembered. “A cudgel, often. Their bare fists, or whatever was at hand. A wooden beam, once. The butt of their rifles." He put his red smarting hand up to shadow his eyes.

“Yes,” muttered Javert. His tone changed as he looked back at Madeleine, and in a harsh, angry tone uttered: “But you. You were strong. You did not falter. You did not scream.” His lip curled as he spoke.

“I did,” said Madeleine.

"No. You would not." 

“I screamed. Believe this.”

Javert considered, silent still, his gaze upon the floor. “What else,” he muttered. Suddenly his face contorted as if from a sob, though his eyes were dry. “What else did they make you do?”

Mornings the guards would come, beating the planks to rouse the prisoners, unlocking their ankle-irons to allow them to rise, putting them on the neck-chain to be herded out into the foul salt air. He would stand quiet at the side of his plank, bending his neck to let the chain pass easier through the side-ring of his collar. _“March, you vermin!”_ would come the order, and he would shuffle forward as he was bid. “What else?" he said, tasting a moment of sharp bitterness. "Whatever they wanted.”

Unexpectedly, Javert snorted and began to curse. “This is disgraceful,” he spat. Perplexed, Madeleine looked up. Javert was scowling. “So. It transpires that I was right in my suspicions of you. I knew all along what you were.”

Madeleine, though his heart sped suddenly, remained on his knees. He was careful to bow his head once more in an attitude of humility, for this was the important moment. This was the moment he would surrender to his true purpose. Quietly he said, “And what was that?” 

“What we discussed the night the smugglers landed. You _have_ known war, after all.” Again he swore. “Only the worst of men deserve such treatment as they gave you! Those foreign devils have no honor - to treat an officer of France in such a way. As if you were a common cur, no better than a criminal.”

Madeleine, stunned, opened his mouth to reply but nothing came to him. Finally he said, “But no-- I was not--”

But Javert did not hear him. His moment of rage had passed, and had seemingly taken with it whatever remained of his diminished strength. Now once again he appeared withdrawn, drooping dejectedly and staring at his damaged hands. “What else,” he said. “Tell me--” The words came reluctantly, as if he could not bear to speak them, nor will himself to hold them back. “Did they--" He drew a deep breath. "Did they--?” 

Both men regarded each other. For a moment both were quiet. It was a silence heavy with dark knowledge. In the one man's gaze there was a question; in the other's, a weighted understanding. After a long pause, Madeleine gave the smallest of nods. It was hard for him to speak, but Javert waited like the most patient of men. And so at last he cleared his throat. 

“They wagered on me," he muttered. He had suffered years of degradations, but it was this incident that came first to his mind. It had been a murky evening, and weeks of rain had left the grounds deep in mud. This was long after Javert had left Toulon, in the late years when discipline among the guards had seemed to fall apart, and they were drunk as often as not, and the prisoners might go two days without food simply because no one thought of feeding them. As was usual, many of the guards were carousing near the front gate. A detachment of convicts, Madeleine among them, was at work clearing rocks from the east field. “They were drunk, and they had me brought to them. Also a horse and wagon.” 

He was the strongest; he had always been the strongest. That’s why they picked him for their amusements more than any of the others. But he was no longer twenty-seven and the bagne was grinding him down; he could feel his strength waning day by day. If he were a horse he could look forward to one day being put to pasture or freed by a well-placed bullet - but as a convict, he understood he would be worked until he died. 

“The cart-horse was led off,” he said. “It was me they wanted.” He could smell it still, the worn leather; and hear the loose laughter of the guards. He had stood still while they cinched the harness straps around him. “They marked a line at my feet. Five hundred paces on, they marked another. One of the guards climbed up into the wagon. Whip at his belt.” He swallowed. “The wet ground slowed me only a little; I pulled the distance with ease. When I had reached the end, they had me turn. Another guard climbed up alongside the first. To increase the weight.”

The second guard, Cambert, had yelled _‘Trottes!’_ \- and even before the lash struck, he had jumped forward like any obedient beast, drawing laughter and jeers from the guards. They had followed, egging him on. “When I reached the start line, they had me turn again. And a third guard mounted.” 

“You let them do that.” said Javert. He was staring straight ahead. 

“I—had no choice.” But it sounded false and he shook his head. “I no longer thought like a man. If there were choices before me, I did not see them as free men do. I only did as I was told.” He looked at Javert helplessly. He could not explain it any better than that, not even to himself. He had hated, but he had obeyed as if he had no will. 

“The other guards watched,” Javert said, his gaze faraway. “You were an amusement for them.”

“A sport,” Madeleine said tightly. “Yes. A moment’s entertainment.”

“How many lengths did you pull?” 

Madeleine wished he did not remember. “Thirteen,” he whispered.

With each successive length and each new guard mounting, the traces had dug deeper into his welted flesh. Blood and sweat ran together. On the thirteenth length, one of the wagon's rear wheels sank in a rut in the wet grey earth. The guards called him obscene names and lash bit across his shoulders; he cried out and threw himself forward. At last the wheels groaned and again began to turn.

“And when the fourteenth man mounted,” said Javert, through his teeth.

Madeleine chewed his lip pensively and did not answer. He did not want to say more. But after a little silence, Javert said again, fierce and urgent: _“The fourteenth man.”_

Madeleine was no longer a respected mayor disguised in a decent suit. He was back on that field, struggling against the weight of the cart, straining in agony while the guards laughed and cursed him. Must he speak of this? “I-- I strained against the load. The cart moved only a little; a quarter-turn of the wheels.” He shook his head. “Even with the whip, I could go no farther. A few men cheered – I supposed they were the ones who had wagered on thirteen. But most of the others had bet I would last longer. They laid into me with riding crops, shouting." He shuddered. "I tried," he muttered. "I gave everything I had. I tried, but I fell and could not rise.” Staring at his bare feet, he lapsed into silence once again. Javert continued to regard him steadily.

And he found suddenly that he wished to say the rest, to say it all - because if there were ever a man who could be told, it was this man beside him. So he went on, in a flat voice. “And they pissed on me.”

Javert moaned, deep in his throat. And the two men looked at each other for a long moment, in silence. Until both of them looked down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note of explanation regarding Javert's comments: 
> 
> The Napoleonic wars lasted from the mid-1790's to 1814. During that time, approximately a hundred thousand Frenchmen were held in England as prisoners of war. Most were sailors and their officers, taken at sea. 
> 
> The prisoners were held on floating hulks (derelict ships at anchor in British harbors) and in land prisons like the Norman Cross and Dartmoor. Some officers were allowed a genteel form of house arrest - after swearing their _parole d'honneur_ that they would not attempt escape, they were given lodgings in British villages and allowed to move about the town as long as they did not pass beyond its borders. There were no prisoner exchanges. Not until 1814, with the defeat and exile of Napoleon, were treaties signed and prisoner repatriation begun. By that time, some of the men had been captives of England for more than ten years. 
> 
> With the dramatic return of long-missing husbands, sons, and brothers, stories began circulating about the scandalous abuse suffered by French POW's at British hands. These "misery-memoirs" are today considered mostly sensationalistic rather than factual. Nevertheless, life was hard for the prisoners: disease, exposure, and starvation took many lives. Several sources mention that the POW's brought much of their misery upon themselves: obsessed with gambling, there were many who lost their clothes and the greater part of their rations to their luckier comrades - who never failed to collect.


	33. bitterness

Javert could feel the trappings of the harness, the weight of the wagon as he bent his back and strained against it. He could hear the jeering laughter of the guards and feel their blows and his own helplessness as they beat him down. He cringed as they pressed around him, invulnerable in their wall of strength, taking out their fat pink cocks, their piss striking him and streaming over him while he could do nothing but cover his face and lie helpless in the mud. 

He had never been in an English prison, but he could see and feel it all. 

He and the mayor sat in silence. The mayor bent his head solemnly. His body, older than Javert's own, was muscled heavily but racked with scars. Javert stared at the marks in horrified fascination, recognizing the tracks left by the lash, and the rusty discoloration of the flesh that indicated years of heavy beatings. Under his gaze, M. Madeleine seemed to shrink back a little but did not seek to cover himself. His shirt was still crumpled on the floor. Javert opened his mouth and tried to speak, but was defeated by the lump in his throat. The mayor said nothing. Something was opening between them. It was strange and dangerous and wholly unfamiliar. He felt himself cracking apart. The mayor's bareness, the humility of his naked skin and the marks upon it, was shattering him in a way he could not explain. All the secrets that had been closed up deep inside his body were threatening to show themselves. M. Madeleine looked at him quietly with kindness and sadness, and could see everything. 

If Javert understood about the harness and the guards, that meant M. Madeleine understood him in return. It meant he understood about Paris - the chains and the cellar and what it was like when M. Ecrain touched him and he did not resist. M. Madeleine looked at him and knew. They had both voyaged to the same land of tears and darkness, and so they knew each other's secrets.

 _A pig on the spit. Over the desk— In the cellar— whatever they wanted--_  
_Helpless--_

He wrenched away as heat surged to his face. “You should have fought them! Not let them harness you like a beast!" 

“I cursed myself for it. For letting them do those things to me.” The mayor spoke quietly, his head still down. His voice held no rancor, and this quiet agreement maddened Javert further. 

“You should have resisted to your last breath, even if they killed you!” He was enraged - had he once looked up to this man? The mayor had pulled a cart like a donkey; he had lain in a field and let men piss on him. “To die fighting would have been honorable, at the least!” 

M. Madeleine let out a little sound like a gasp. “What was I? A farm boy from Faverolles.” His voice cracked. A look of anguish had come over him and tears were showing now in his eyes. “The court, the wagons, the chains; the threat of what they could do to you at any moment. I had never known terror like that.”

“Cowardice,” hissed Javert. The wetness in the mayor’s eyes filled him with disgust. Disgust made him strong. “Cowardice, and nothing more.” 

But still M. Madeleine was not roused to anger. “I wanted to survive, I think," the mayor said. "Even in that place of toil and pain and humiliation. Even when I had given up all hope. Strange, isn’t it? I thought I wanted to die, that death would be easier than going on - but something in me chose differently, and so I kept doing what was necessary to live another day.” 

At these words, Javert felt his strength deserting him. His rage was cooling like a brazier thrust into the snow, and into its place rolled the familiar unsated desperation that had gnawed at him some nights as he patrolled the city, when the snow was deep and the streets abandoned. He wanted to fight, but the mayor would not fight. And there was no one else. So what was left him? 

He thought of the hills, suddenly, in their lonely splendor. If he were there now - if his burning feet could carry him away to the high places, to the open tilt and curve of land, the rearing black rocks and unhindered wind - perhaps he could shake free of his smothering despair. But the hills were far. He was a captive within four walls, with stone below and wood above and no way out. Bitterness was all he had. He clung to it. He thought again of the mayor cringing on the ground in horse's harness, his officer's uniform stained with filth, as his enemies pulled out their cocks. He looked at the hideous scars marring the man's flesh, and his contempt renewed itself. The mayor looked no different from an old nag, a broken creature who would stand still for any abuse its master dealt it. He looked as low and prideless as any common convict. He could have passed for any of the thieves and murderers Javert had guarded in the bagne. He had allowed himself to be destroyed.

What kind of worthless man abandons everything he believes in? What kind of man becomes complicit in his own degradation, to save his miserable skin?

“You let them turn you into a animal,” he spat. But the words sounded hollow, even to him. 

“Yes."

"Because you were not strong enough to fight!"

"They could not be fought." The mayor closed his eyes, and tears beaded in his lashes but did not fall. "I was the strongest of the prisoners, but there were too many of them. So I hated and I dreamt of vengeance – all the years that I was there, and all the years since I’ve been free. I swore that if I ever came across one of my tormenters, even after twenty years or a hundred, I would make them pay for what they'd done to me. It was wrong but it was what I became. I don’t know how I survived it,” he muttered. “My God. The things I suffered.”

Javert sneered. “What things? Tell me, then. What else was there. What else did you suffer?”

He could not keep himself from looking again at the mayor’s face - at the wet gray lashes that lay against those worn cheeks, at the brokenness that showed itself so plainly. He said again: "Tell me.”

M. Madeleine opened his eyes. He looked back and for a moment he seemed about to speak. But instead he merely shook his head and looked away.

Javert reached out and gripped his wrist. "Tell me," he said a third time - and this time he did not bother to hide the plea in those words, or the need and misery behind them. All of his weapons - rage and contempt and violence - were falling useless from his hands, turned away by the mayor's gentle honesty and the vulnerable bareness of his scarred flesh. _I am the same as you,_ the scars said. _You and I, we have been where no one else has. We understand shame._

He had nothing left. He reached out blindly toward his last remaining hope of solace.

"Please," he choked. "Tell me."


	34. men of few words

Madeleine's mouth had become dry, his tongue sticking as he tried to speak. He could not think what to tell Javert about his nineteen years of anguish - how could he put his entire past into words? - but then he looked toward the leaping fire. He began to speak of the first things that came to him. How cold the sleeping-planks had been in winter. The hunger that had always gnawed at him as he lay in the dark. The groans and curses of the prisoners chained beside him. The words came haltingly at first. 

And then, the way the hillside streams around Faverolles burst free of their ice-dams each spring under the sun's warmth, and rushed down in a torrent past his childhood cottage, suddenly his tongue loosened. Memories crowded up on him, and he could not stop talking. He spoke of everything - the insults and blows he'd suffered, the bitterness that had grown in him, the family he'd lost, the injustice of it all. And he spoke of the guards too: how they had looked down and beaten him and worked him like a beast, and had no mercy. 

Javert sat very still and said nothing.

"There were five of us," Madeleine said next, "all crowded together in a tiny cell. It was the longest night of my life. I could not stand it. I thought I would die if I could not see the open sky. Some of the other men were drunk, and all of us were stepping on each other and cursing, and only a little light through a barred slot in the door. The walls pressed in so close I could not breathe. Then I began to think of my family and what would become of them. I shouted for the guard because I thought I might die from having no air. He didn’t come; I couldn’t see anyone. The other men told me to shut up.”

He was not speaking of Toulon now, but the cell in a town near Faverolles – he never knew the name of it – where he was taken after his arrest. “Jeanne,” he had whispered in despair. And then louder, “Jeanne.” He had put his palms flat against the sweating wall and pushed as if he could thrust it down. Then he had begun to beat at it with his fists. “Jeanne! Michel! Charlotte!”

“Finally a guard did come. I started to tell him that I had to leave; he had to let me go. He listened quietly and nodded and I thought I could make him understand. Then he hit me in the temple with his rifle-butt.” He put his hand up to his head. “He went out again, leaving me crouching on the floor. ‘Shut up, idiot,’ the others said. “We told you not to make trouble.”

He looked over at Javert. The other man was not looking at him, only running his red thumb back and forth mechanically over a fold in Mme. Chorin’s blanket. “I wept,” Madeleine muttered. “I could not help it.”

As Javert made no response, Madeleine did not know if he were angry or uninterested or if he were listening at all. Still, he could not stop himself from telling more. He settled himself against the wall and leaned his back against it, feeling the coolness of the wood against his ridged, bare scars. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes. “A man tries to get used to being a slave,” he said. "And maybe part of him can. But part of him never does."

.

Javert listened, and the walls of M. Madeleine’s prison grew up around him. All that the mayor described was so familiar. The rivets on the iron collars. The prisoners pressed flank to flank in the wagons, disgorged outside the prison like a pile of ripe meat being dumped on the ground. The chain of men hanging back reluctantly at the gates until the gendarmes brought their whips out and flogged them through. He remembered how it had been at Toulon: among the many who dragged their feet dispiritedly, were always a few who held their heads resolutely high in a show of pride. Those were the ones who would need breaking before there was any hope of teaching them to respect the law. 

“When we arrived at the prison,” M. Madeleine was saying, “they pointed to a pile of smocks and trousers, heaped as tall as a man, and ordered us to strip. No one would be first to obey. Then the guards began to club us down. Men fell, dragging others down on top of them because we were all chained at the neck. There was shouting and pleading. Some of the men began tearing off their clothes in haste. Then I did too. We all did the same.” 

Javert had seen this happen many times. An English prison must be very like a bagne. He had swung his cudgel himself on the new prisoners in this same situation, to encourage them in lawful conduct and obedience. When they were naked he used to look them over with a practiced eye, noting which ones seemed strong and would make good workers, and which were soft or sickly or disruptive.

 _Show us the goods! Come now, Inspector; don't be shy!_

He shuddered. “Go on.” 

.

Madeleine began telling of the drydock where the work never ceased. Ships were towed into the harbor, their hulls shattered from cannon-shot or from a ramming on the high seas; masts snapped off and planks cracked by sun and storm. The shipwrights spoke to the guards, and the guards shouted orders, and the prisoners obeyed. They hauled wood and pounded nails and crawled about in the dark below decks, where a man felt like he was being roasted alive in his own tomb. You emerged covered in pitch and gashed head to foot from the rough edges of the beams. Men gave their blood and their strength and health to the work, and some of them died at it - mostly from being crushed, or falling from great heights. 

Finally, after months of it, the prisoners would be ordered to form a line, and all together they'd take hold of the heavy chain that opened the inner sea-gate. It took the strength of every man to move it. Knots of rust would dig and tear at their hands, and they'd swear at each other and strain and the guards would move up and down the line dealing out blows at those they deemed to be giving inferior effort. At last the huge doors would slide apart little by little into their fittings, letting the sea surge in. As the drydock flooded, the ship would rise steadily and begin to right itself. Finally it would come upright, its keel plunging down with a slow, mighty crash that cleft the water and raised a towering wave on each side like two green rolling mountains. The first time he saw this sight he was stunned breathless by the majesty of it. _That is my work;_ he thought, admiring the glossy decks and the smooth curve of the prow. It was the thought he used to have in Faverolles when he surveyed the orchards where he worked, covered in bloom or healthy fruit. _That is the labor of my hands._ But then he remembered he was a slave, nothing more, and the dart of happiness fled from him.

The seamen rowed out and climbed aboard and raised the flag atop the highest mast, cheering as the wind took hold of it. The sight lifted his heart in pride. Some of the other convicts were grinning and striking each other on the back. But the flag made him think also of the courtroom where his freedom had been robbed from him. _I sentence you by the laws of France,_ the judge had said. 

Within a week the ship departed, its crew straining at the ropes, waving their caps and shouting as the proud sails filled. They were free men, bound for the wide sea which must be, he thought, like the greenest field in summer. But for him there was no escape, only another massive ship to begin mending - another round of labor, day after day after day, and more beatings to go with it. 

“It wasn't the work I minded,” he said, "even though it broke me." How could he make Javert understand this? “We were raised on work, my sister and I and our parents, all of us; never a moment’s rest. To build a thing, to repair what’s broken - that’s honest toil. But to work as a slave, to have no respite and see no pay, and to be chained and cursed at and punished for any error or for none at all, to know I was a beast and they my masters - that was different. Do you hear me?" He clenched his fists. "It was not right.”

Javert was far away, his forehead creased. There was no knowing his thoughts, but he when he spoke he sounded tense and brittle. “Go on,” he said again. 

So he told Javert about Marcelles, whom he had never spoken of; Marcelles who was dead, his body dumped at sea. Perhaps his bones were still rolling back and forth along the bottom even now, with weeds waving around them. How many men had he seen end that way during his time at Toulon? Too many to remember. Marcelles was only different because they had been friends. In nineteen years even a taciturn man submerged in bitterness finds an occasional soul that stirs his own. 

“He reminded me of one of my nephews,” Madeleine said; “the way he spoke. I had been in prison for years already when he came. I was used to it by then, as much as a man can get used to such a place, but to see him get beaten down, when he was so new to it—“ Roughly he rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes.

From the first night, he had arranged to have Marcelles sleep beside him in the big hall so he could keep the boy safe from predations. He had intended no more than that. He was an old hand at Toulon, and everyone let him alone. He had no companions and he needed none. He took his comfort in his own hand if he was moved to. That was enough. He had no interest in forming attachments as most of the other convicts did. But then, in the dark, Marcelles had started talking.

“Barley,” he had said dreamily, holding out his hand to demonstrate, “this high. And a stream beside our cottage. And up the hillside stand the sheep in their thick coats, all milling about stupidly, with the shepherd’s dogs sitting back on their haunches with tongues lolling out, grinning.” 

Madeleine’s breath had caught in his chest like a hook. Marcelles must have heard, for suddenly he had groped blindly and seized him by the shoulders. “I was to have married in the church in springtime,” the young man gasped. “Her hair is yellow. Her father is the fattest man you’ve ever seen.” There was no more said. They had only clutched at each other wordlessly, holding themselves apart with a careful space between them, both breathing hard, digging their fingers in, hanging on.

If anything, Marcelles had been even more laconic than himself. In the day they never spoke; they barely exchanged glances. It didn’t matter. He let it be known that the boy was his, and after that no one dared to give him trouble. At night they would whisper a few words together - about farming, or porridge and warm bread, or how chickens convulsed twice when you wrung their necks. Sometimes he spat in his hand and stroked the boy off quickly, and then Marcelles did it for him, making him groan quietly at the moment of release and fall back onto the plank in a drained stupor. But that was just something they did. It was the things they spoke about and the thoughts they shared without saying them, that mattered. 

“He was only there for a few months," he told Javert. "There was an injury. His foot went black.” He could not say more than that, because suddenly his face was wet and he had to turn away.

After a while, he heard a grating sound from the other man. Javert was clearing his throat.

“You don’t get free of it,” Javert muttered. “It follows you. Even after you're out. You can't get free and you can't get justice.”

He thought about this. What answer could he give? “No,” he said at last, because Javert was right. It was something they both knew. But then he thought some more, and he added, “In Heaven, though. There’s justice there. God is just. And some men are just. And the rest of us can only try to follow their example.”

"You believe that, do you. That God is just.”

It was said bitterly. But somehow all at once Madeleine had the same sweet rush of feeling he used to get as he lay beside Marcelles. He smiled, feeling his wet cheeks lift. He put a hand on Javert’s arm. The other man tensed at his touch.

“Yes," he answered. "I am sure of it.”


	35. bamatabois

On the hillside the sun was failing, and the shadows of the boulders had grown long. Javert paused, panting, and leaned against a dark tongue of rock, setting his elbows down on it. The snow had already melted from its rugged face. His body seemed beaten blue all over, as if someone had taken his own cudgel to him in his sleep. His feet felt skinned and roasted. He would barely have been surprised to see smoke curling up through the leather.

“You’ll lose these two on this side. Probably the same from the other foot as well.” The doctor had spoken dispassionately, holding Javert’s ankles and prodding his toes until Javert could barely restrain himself from tearing free and launching himself at the man's throat. “Too soon to tell, though. Stay in bed for a few days more. Keep them clean and warm; you’ll find they won’t bear even a moderate chill now. Rest. Come summer, it will be clear which toes are truly dead and which worth keeping.” 

_Rest._

He was going mad from resting. He had rested long enough. 

He was unsure how many turns of day and night had passed since he had woken to find himself in the bed in his quarters. Between his leaden dreams and brief awakenings, he had come undone from the rhythm of time. The memory of M. Madeleine’s bare flesh haunted him. Had it been yesterday or the day before, that the mayor had thrown his shirt down on the floor and said things Javert could barely stand to remember? 

Up here on the dripping hillside, the moist breeze smelled more of spring than winter. Trickles of meltwater hissed beneath the snow, attesting to the mildness of the fading day. Impossible to think that this was the same way he had come during the storm. On that night, the blind black wind had ripped and shredded itself around him while he strode through it, insensible as if he were hewn of rock or ice himself. The wind’s lash had promised to blow out the weak flame of his life and he had been glad of this. But now the hillside was gentle. The path at his feet was still dressed in snow, but the milk-white of it had gone translucent in places, and it crushed wetly when he stepped.

He leaned against the black boulder. The pain in his feet was becoming more tolerable now that he had gotten used to it, and he felt somewhat calmed by the open sweep of land and the way the wind cupped and stroked it. He filled his lungs. The air entered him sharply, frost-edged, with a sweet mud scent beneath. The first shelter was still only a smudge above him on the wavelike maroon hillside - but he didn’t need a shelter now. In the broad land and unfettered atmosphere he could become part of the liquid landscape, spreading his body into formlessness like the shadows and the wind. He had come here to think, as he could not think in the city. He had been driven here to make sense of the dark ruminations which had taken hold of him as he lay in the too-soft bed. 

There was no justice. 

He had stumbled upon this truth and his mind was following it down and down in tighter spirals. No justice. There was the law, of course. But the law was useless.

Bamatabois was surely still free. The police had no reason to hold him. He was free to wear his dandied suit and smoke in the café. Javert could stand in court someday and testify against him – but even if the bastard were convicted and got hard labor ( _and would he really? for doing no more than gentlemen are accustomed to doing with their servants?_ ) it would not set things right. He had seen the girl’s face before she had run off. He saw it still when he closed his eyes. He understood the agony she had suffered - must still be suffering - as if it were his own. The damage done to her could never be repaired. 

Criminals went free all over France; that was the hideous truth that he had refused to see throughout his life of upright service to society. They went free if they had strength or status or great numbers or enough power to corrupt the law. They did what they pleased. They could flog a man, rope him to a wagon, and piss on him. They could rape a servant girl and laugh about it. They held office; they wore uniforms. They went free even when evidence of their crimes was in plain sight: blood on their hands or bribes in their pockets. They got away with terrible things, and men still bowed to them. They were respected. Meanwhile, their victims, like the servant girl, crept away broken and helpless. 

“All the laws, great and small,” M. Lemois had taught him. “That is the only way for a boy like you to lift himself up.” He had worshipped M. Lemois, who had taught him to stand straight and shake hands firmly like a man, and who had saved him from sharing his father's fate. In striving for M. Lemois' regard, he had come to worship the law as if it were a holy gift entrusted to him from on high. In Paris he had felt much the same inarticulate admiration toward M. Chabouillet. But both men had both been false idols. He’d been a fool to have faith in them. 

It was not the law that kept order in the world, but only power and savagery - and the will to make use of them. 

And M. Madeleine – with his lashed back and scarred wrists? He was proof, just as Bamatabois was proof. He had been abused like a dog, and yet the men who had done it still were free. They were terrible men. Yet they had worn uniforms and the might of the British empire had stood behind them. They had meted out punishment with whip and club; with the law as their shield, they had been cruel and pitiless. Did the mayor believe there would be justice in Heaven? Javert knew better. He could not stop thinking of the mayor in the ragged uniform of a prisoner - for some reason, he kept imagining a red smock - crying out as the lash cracked across his back.

It was intolerable, the lack of justice in the world. His insides squeezed as if a rope were wrapped around them, drawing tight. He could not stand it. Someone must pay. 

He had been at fault when he attacked M. Madeleine before. He understood now that the mayor had done him no wrong. _Let me suck your cock,_ Javert had said – had begged, to tell the truth; as shameful and unthinkable as that truth was. _Flog me; you must!_ M. Madeleine had merely acquiesced. Javert had misjudged him in a fit of madness brought on by the cold and the sight of Bamatabois’ crime; he had become confused somehow and pursued the wrong man. But he had recovered and become quite sane. He could see things now that he had not comprehended before. M. Madeleine was innocent. The guilty ones, though - they were still out there, enjoying their freedom. 

Javert leaned against the rock for a long time, thinking about this. 

It was well past dark when he returned to his quarters. Mme. Chorin tried to stand in his way – “M. Javert! You should not be walking yet!” – and he was as civil to her as he could be. By her expression, he did not quite succeed. But he thanked her for the dinner she had brought, and at last she went away. 

He changed into laborer’s clothes and a stained cap, and went out again. He had no clear plan and no particular destination. He was not patrolling, merely walking. The cudgel under his arm, concealed in the folds of his coat? That was just from habit. 

The Rue de la Victoire thrummed with activity. He slipped silently through the shadows. It did not take him long to find a hiding place that suited his purposes. A flock of men, as noisy and mindless as sheep, were gathered in the café as on every other night, while a few town women in stained dresses loitered outside, jutting out their hips and sliding their skirts up high enough to show their calves. Past midnight the crowds began to thin and the clamor of shouts and scraping chairs and ribald laughter died down. The gentlemen detached from their tables in ones and twos and groups, drifting away down the street. Bamatabois was one of the last to leave, but eventually he, too, rose and tipped his foppish hat to his companions. On the way out the door, he staggered and struck his hip against a chair, and with a laugh he grabbed a tavern-girl’s arm to steady himself.

He did not look back as he wove along the avenue toward the better side of town. 

Javert padded silently after him, keeping a fair distance between himself and his prey. As they left the main street, however, he closed nearer. The man’s obliviousness angered him. Taking out his cudgel, he struck it sharply against a lamp-post so that the sound reverberated down the empty lane. As Bamatabois grunted in surprise and reeled around, he flattened himself into the dark recess between two houses. He was gratified by the man’s obvious puzzlement and the way he looked from one side of the lane to the other, his head swinging back and forth.

They proceeded a little farther. Smiling now, Javert intentionally put his boots down loudly, staggering his steps with Bamatabois’s own so the man could not help but hear him. Again Bamatabois turned. “Who’s there?” he slurred. “Someone there?” Behind a wall, crouching with his weapon tucked calmly under his arm, Javert licked his lips, enjoying the taste of the night and the cool touch of the wind. 

The Rue Chanson, the street of Bamatabois, now lay only two turns ahead. Javert left off his pursuit and cut across a narrow field. He no longer felt his damaged feet at all, and loped easily and soundlessly so that he reached Bamatabois’ street well ahead of his quarry. The man’s house was a fine brick one, its splendid walkway lined by two matched statues of some sort of winged beast. Javert sized them up at a glance and took a position behind the nearer. He stilled his breath so he could hear the man’s slapping footsteps growing louder. Soon. It would be soon. A few seconds more. He took out his cudgel and, feeling suddenly flushed, he unbuttoned his coat. 

The footsteps came closer. They were almost upon him. He hesitated as a wave of heat rolled over him.

Then he sprang into Bamatabois' path.

“Hein-- you-- what-- Who are you?” The other man clutched at his pockets and staggered backward. His eyes were huge, the whites bloodshot in the flutter of lamplight. Javert could smell the fear on him and make out the tremor of his hands. An irregular dark stain, of wine or blood, marred the white lace of one cuff. Seen so close, he was not as young as Javert had thought before. A tracing of burst vessels showed on his cheeks. “What do you want?” he cried. 

Facing him, Javert's certainty evaporated. This was Bamatabois: a monster. A monster who was also a man. He tightened his grip on the cudgel. But he could not bring himself to move.

Bamatabois remained half-stooped, his body tensed to receive an attack. He seemed frozen with fear and entirely at Javert's mercy. Javert was overcome by bewilderment, suddenly, to find himself in this place - a weapon in his hand, a helpless man crouching before him. Only a moment before, his course of action had seemed correct. But why had he taken the cudgel when he left Mme. Chorin's? He recognized what any watching man would take him for: a cut-throat; a man no different from any cut-throat of the Rue Sixieme gang.

So they stood like that, two men in a silent street, long past midnight, with a few patches of dirty snow around them.

Javert thrust his cudgel back under his arm. “It's nothing,” he muttered. He jerked his chin toward the brick house. “Go home.” Bamatabois did not move, but remained crouched and quivering, as weak and frightened as a rabbit. After a moment, Javert muttered, "My apologies." Then he swung around, and trudged back the way he'd come.


	36. wolves above the city

“Please.” Javert stood rigid, staring straight ahead. He had come to the station house in all humility, but now his hands were fists at his sides and he could barely restrain his temper. “I am speaking the truth.”

The chief inspector raised a single eyebrow. “I have no doubt. But I am afraid I cannot oblige you in this request.”

“It is not a request; it is justice. Moreover, it is a matter of law: Book three, article sixteen.” It was madness that he should have to ask for what was his due. A sole road lay before him. It was the only proper route, and he meant to travel it swiftly. In a strange way, he was looking forward to it. But Magritte was obstinately standing in his path.

“I am familiar with the penal code. But thank you for reminding me. We can be so forgetful, out here in the minor provinces.”

“Why will you not arrest me!”

“Because you are too late,” Magritte snapped. “I was called to the mairie at the break of morning for an audience with your victim, who is also, as it happens, my superior. He told me to expect you, and asked me to prevent you from thrusting yourself headlong into my cells. I promised to do my best.”

“This is intolerable,” Javert murmured. “I harmed a citizen. Instead of defending society, I undermined it. I cannot remain unpunished.”

“The mayor seems to think you were under strain at the time and should be pardoned. He did not discuss details, and I have no desire to hear them. I doubt I would be as forgiving in his place. But, there it is." He shrugged and put out his hands, palms upward. "We are all at the mercy of our betters.”

The door to the chief inspector’s office creaked open and a face appeared in the crack. “Yes, Severiche,” Magritte sighed; “we are busy here - what is it?”

The young man grinned. “They said Inspector Javert was here. I just wanted to say, sir, that it’s good to see you. I hope your injuries are improving and that you will soon return.”

Javert mustered a grim word of thanks. Magritte waved Severiche off impatiently. “You have reports to write, I am sure? Out!” He turned back to Javert. “When one breaks the law,” he said, “the usual practice is to deny it and evade punishment. You seem unclear on this point. Tell me: why are you so eager to give yourself up?”

“I have told you already, chief inspector. I attacked the mayor.”

Magritte pushed back his chair and stood. “How are your feet? M. le maire told me they were injured in the cold.”

The rapid change of subject threw him off balance. “They are well enough," he managed. "Thank you for inquiring.”

“I do not ask from politeness. Suppose you were to return to duty. How long would it be before you are fit?”

“Chief Inspector,” Javert whispered. He bent his head. If he had had any remaining honor when he walked himself through the doors of the station-house and into Magritte's office, the last of it was now slipping away. 

“You have seen what this city is like. I need good men. Ones who know their way about the work, and are honest." Returning to his usual acid tone he added, "Silver Cross men, one might say."

"But--"

"I have come to rely on your eyes and experience.” He came around the desk and stood directly in front of Javert, so that their faces were an inch apart. “And I trust you will now assure me that you are not planning to attack any more citizens or magistrates in this jurisdiction. Unless they deserve it.”

Javert looked down at his hands, where the red skin peeled and cracked around his nails. Just last night these hands had been wrapped around a cudgel as he crouched in hiding on the Rue Chanson. “I will not do that again.”

“Then you are dismissed.”

Javert’s mouth opened and closed. So that was that: the road forward was barred. “What am I to do?” he murmured. He had not meant to say the words aloud. The office, the station-house, Magritte himself, were swallowed by the dark haze rising before his vision. Where he had once been clear, he now stumbled on an unknown terrain that shifted beneath his feet. Nothing remained certain. Everything he had counted on had deserted him. 

A heavy hand fell on his shoulder. The stumps of Magritte’s missing fingers dug into him. “Heal. Then return to see me in two weeks. I’ll hear your answer then.” Javert remained silent, and after a moment Magritte added softly, “You know, Javert: you’re not the first man to be wounded doing his duty. You’re one of us. And we take care of our own.”

Out on the street, townspeople were walking briskly about their business in the bright morning light. Javert recognized few of their faces. This was the city's respectable aspect - safe and civilized and free of danger. The sun exposed everything and there was little cover. He was no longer afraid of the eyes of strangers, as he once had been, but he knew in his marrow that he did not belong here, living in close quarters among people who enjoyed noise and light, and who flocked together for companionship. 

Seeking respite, he soon found himself atop a boulder a little ways above the closest shelter. From there he surveyed the movements of the land and the creatures on it. The snow remained in only a few patches, and the brown rough grass was tinged with green. He sat with his chin in his hands. The sun trekked overhead by degrees. The little gusting breeze came from the west and smelt of salt and rotting weeds along the shore. He watched as the squat hulk of his shadow shrank to almost nothing and then lengthened again. With time it stretched farther and farther across the puddled slope until it seemed to cross the whole of the hillside before melting, finally, into the engulfing dark that welcomed it. Retreating to his bed of hay in the shelter, he tossed for a while and eventually fell into a restless sleep.

Some time later he awoke. A pale wash of moonlight could be seen through the broken corner of the roof. His mouth was dry and his feet hurt; most of all, he needed to piss. He staggered up. Brushing hay off his bare skin and his drawers, he was careful not to shed any wisps on the pile of clothes he had placed neatly on the driest section of the floor. Ever since Mme. Chorin had offered to do his laundering in exchange for having his labor around the house, he had been more careful to keep his garments clean, out of respect for her efforts. 

The temperature had not dropped much in the night, and a slight breeze touched him as he made his way a few meters down the slope and bared himself in the darkness. In the quiet, his stream spattered loudly against the muddy ground, the sharp scent burning in his nostrils. As he shook the last drops free, the wind stirred more vigorously. The chill made his hairs stand up and sent prickles along the back of his neck and across his bare chest and down his spine. A mild heat gathered in his balls; his cock stiffened slightly. Cradling it in his hands, he touched his shaft in wonder. How long had it been since he had felt this? He found himself almost afraid to breathe, fearful of driving away the sensation. He made a loose fist and slid it lightly down over his cockhead. The pleasure was familiar yet strange: as if a part of himself had been asleep - his right arm numb or his nose blind to odors - but that until this moment, he had not noticed what he was lacking. 

His cock remained half-hard as he played his fingers along it, striking sparks - not a devouring fire but the teasing spit of embers in the stove on a winter night. Above, he heard the rush of quick wings and, looking up, saw against the moon the play of winged insects in a swarm, dancing around each other. Then all was silence. A touch of loneliness came over him, the breadth and isolation of the landscape making him feel small. 

A wolf's howl rose somewhere in the hills above him. The note started low and climbed higher, arrowing through the silent countryside across an unknown distance. It was a mournful sound. A moment later came another howl from a different direction, and then a third from so far away that his ears barely registered it. In the voices he heard sadness, but also companionship. Each was a thread thrown out into the darkness, and caught, and thrown back in reassurance: _And I - I am here too._

Returning to the shelter, he curled beneath his mound of hay. Sleep found him. There were no dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These past two chapters have killed me, because Javert has so many conflicts that need to be resolved without turning his character upside-down. Does he still believe in the law? Will he remain forever homicidal toward the people who hurt him? Will he continue to feel rage toward Madeleine for abusing him? How will he deal with his own crimes (of permitting the rape of the servant girl, and later attacking Madeleine) - things which brick-javert would certainly demand to be imprisoned for? Will he ever recognize that as a prison guard, he played the part of Ecrain (though, of course, with better intentions) and that the Toulon convicts were brutalized and humiliated by him, in the name of justice? Will he ever let himself recognize Valjean? Will he ever get over his sexual trauma? Will he go back to work? If not, how will he earn a living? What kind of life will he make for himself? How is this going to relate to the Asturian story of the wolf-pup?
> 
> I've tried to answer many of those questions, and can only hope it reads the way I intended.
> 
> A handicap is that Javert isn't a deep-thinking, introspective guy who can work things out by having long eye-opening conversations with himself, or with friends or a priest or even Madeleine. 
> 
> I've always seen him as a man who has survived by clinging to a narrow view of the world which makes him feel secure and purposeful - rather like a religious fundamentalist who would rather question nothing, than look at his beliefs too closely and risk seeing that they don't add up. Knock down one of Javert's illusions and he'll reach out desperately to erect another which keeps his world together. So I tried to show that in the last two chapters. If the law has failed him, he'll grasp at vengeance. When he can't violate his deepest principles by killing, he seeks prison. He'll do pretty much anything rather than live with uncertainty and uncomfortable questions. 
> 
> Hopefully this is coming across decently. 
> 
> Fortunately, Madeleine gets the next chapter! (Which I think will be the last chapter.) He's much less complicated, though he has troubles of his own.


	37. a hut in need of repair

Madeleine knocked tentatively at the Chorins’ door. He had returned every day for over a week, and was afraid of wearing out his welcome. Mme. Chorin was always gracious, but by now she must be sick of the sight of him.

“Not since yesterday evening,” said Mme. Chorin, shaking her head. “It’s as I’ve told you all week long. He stays out all day and, as best I know, all night as well. The best chance of finding him home is at the dinner hour. He dines after sunset, in his room.”

Madeleine shifted on his feet. A hard nut of fear had been growing in him, beginning the moment he had left Javert's quarters eight days before. After all the fear and hope he had felt upon revealing himself, their encounter had ended without any satisfaction. Javert had merely stared morosely at the wall of his quarters, not speaking. Madeleine had finally asked if he were tired. “Yes,” he said - nothing more than that. After another minute or so, Madeleine could think of nothing to do but pick up M. Chorin’s shirt and waistcoat from the floor and dress quietly, cursing the gulf that somehow still kept them apart. “Well,” he said at last. “Rest then. When you feel better, perhaps you will visit me, at the mairie or, or, perhaps elsewhere.” He had meant to say _or at my home._ But with the words on his lips he was stopped by realization of the true relationship between them: the one a wanted felon, the other an officer of the law. Javert would soon recover his strength and with it, his mental faculties. Surely it would not be long before he recognized Madeleine for the criminal he was - and a criminal has no right to invite an officer to dinner.

So, heavy-hearted, he had left.

The next days were an agony of waiting. He waited for the police summons that would mark the end of his freedom; he waited also for Javert himself to appear in his doorway with handcuffs in hand and a sneer of triumph. He steeled himself for these eventualities. But he could not help secretly hoping for something else: that when the knock on his door came, it would be only Javert, alone and carrying no weapons. It would only be a wounded man seeking comfort from another who understood.

Of course that would not happen. But a man could not repress his hopes.

It was his place to wait: it was Javert's right to take him into custody whenever and wherever he wished. But as days passed, Madeleine's mind drifted toward a different worry - not for himself but for the other man. What was Javert doing, all this time - and what were his thoughts? Suppose Madeleine's revelation had done him harm rather than good. What if, by showing Javert the extent of human cruelty, he had sent an unstable man deeper into despair?

 _And what if he comes to understand that he has himself been my torturer; that it was he who put some of those marks upon my back? What then?_ So with growing anxiety he had begun to haunt the Chorins' doorstep. 

“I have just come from the hospital,” he admitted now to Mme. Chorin. “I had hoped the doctor could give me news of him. But he could tell me nothing - he says Javert has refused his visits. There is no telling how bad those injuries to his feet have become.”

The lady smiled. “On that score I can reassure you. His feet are healing well.” At Madeleine’s startled glance, she laughed. “No, I have not seen them. But remember that it is I who brings him warm water and clean cloths in the evening, and gets those cloths back when he is done with them. Also, just lately I have decided that his boots need to be cleaned and polished every night. He surrenders them to me while he is eating, and I satisfy myself that they are unmarked by bleeding or the stigmata of infection. He sees through my ploy, I am sure, but is too polite to argue.”

He lacked the words to express his gratitude. He regarded her: a woman in a worn and simple dress with a dusting of flour on the sleeve. She had no halo or blue shawl to mark her, as in paintings, as one of God's holy people; she did not wear a cassock or carry a seal of the Vatican's authority. She was only a common saint of Montreuil-sur-Mer. There were probably thousands like her in the city and countless more beyond; a world of common saints, and he had never noticed.

He made a simple appeal. "Please, Madame. Will you not tell me where he spends his days?”

Her face lost a little of its geniality. “That’s his business,” she said gently. “I told you before, monsieur: I don’t inquire.”

“Yes. Of course. But madame,” he said, “today, I have come to plead with you. I have been waiting for a week in the hope that he would seek me out of his own volition. Now I do not think he ever will, and I-- I need to see him. I have cleared my schedule of appointments this afternoon. If you will tell me what you know of his whereabouts, I will go in search of him.” He bit the inside of his lip and muttered with some embarrassment, “Actually, I had hoped he might consent to dine with me.”

At that, Mme. Chorin's ready smile became nothing short of radiant. “Oh, monsieur le maire,” she said – but despite the formal address, there was a fondness in her look that made him feel rather like a child. “Do you know that for four years I have heard Mere Voisier’s laments? Never a guest for dinner, she complains, despite her master’s standing in the town - and the fine oaken table in your dining room with chairs for six, and the silver service that she shines every week while you insist on eating off cheap pewter.”

“She should prefer the house quiet. It means less work for her.”

“She worries, and would like to see you happy, Monsieur. As would we all.”

Madeleine, embarrassed, cleared his throat. “Can you tell me where to seek him, then? I do not want to lose another day.”

She nodded. “Of course. He is seen walking that road.” She pointed north, toward the foot of the hills – the road Javert had taken on the night of the storm. “He returns with his boots stained with country mud. But that is all I can tell you.”

“That is enough. I thank you, Madame.” He bowed and left her doorstep, making his way back to the street and starting in the direction she had shown him. But soon footsteps came clattering after him.

“Wait, monsieur le maire!” He turned to find Mme. Chorin, breathing hard from the chase, with a lock of dark hair pulling loose from her bun. She was holding out a package wrapped in brown paper. The smell of bread was unmistakable, and when he took it, it warmed his hands. “Give him this from me, when you find him.”

He strode down the road and began to climb the weaving path up the slope. He could hardly believe this was the same place he had come on the night of the storm. With the sun upon it and the lure of spring, the trickles of water running down the edges of the path, it was entirely changed.

As he climbed, however, the sights and sounds stirred him with their familiarity. The open land and the scent of drenched earth in springtime took him back, not to the night when he had chased Javert nearly to both their deaths, but to the farmlands of his childhood. Off to his right was a crease between two hills, where a grove of beech and walnut wavered like an inviting shelter. It occurred to him that he could return on another day and explore those woods - rub his hands on those broad trunks and have sap on his fingers, as if he were again a man of twenty-six. Like a veteran soldier returning to his homeland after years away at war, he stared all around with wonder, breathing in the brisk wind and marveling at the spongy ground and the green things growing. He saw the track of deer that must have been made at dawn, leading toward the stand of trees like a line of arrow-tips. Above him he made out the outline of a small stone cottage. It was the kind his grandfather had built when he had first come alone from Normandy fleeing a drought. He had found good work in Faverolles and had met a girl, and had never left.

Alongside the cottage a figure was standing. It bent, then straightened and seemed to press itself into the cottage wall. After a while it detached and bent again. It was male, certainly, and of tall and thin proportions. Madeleine did not need to see the face to give a start of happiness.

“Javert!” The tall figure did not raise his head. Coming closer, Madeleine could see that he was wearing workman’s clothes, and at his feet was a pile of stones. Raising his hand, Madeleine shouted Javert’s name again. He did not want to take him by surprise. 

Javert paused in his work and watched as Madeleine approached. With dismay Madeleine realized that in his excitement he had nearly crushed the package under his arm. No matter. His legs were aching but he hurried forward, coming at last up the final few meters. 

“Good day. I’ve come from the Chorins’ house. Mme. Chorin sent me with this, for you.” He held out the package. It was a blessing the good lady had given it to him. Otherwise he would be standing here before Javert with the cuffs of his good trousers spattered with mud nad dragging at his heels, wondering how on earth he could explain his presence. 

Javert was wearing stained gloves – not the heavy gloves used by farmers, but the type that formed part of a police officer’s uniform. He took the package Madeleine held out, and sniffed at it. “Bread,” he said, immediately tearing off the paper and tossing his gloves down on a nearby rock. He took hold of the smashed loaf, ripped it in half and returned one part to Madeleine. Without another word he sank his teeth into his portion. Madeleine followed his example. At least, with his mouth full of bread, he could not be expected to make conversation.

The bread was gone soon enough. “Why have you come?” Javert asked. The words sounded harsh, the phrasing uncouth. But Javert's face showed no anger. He was not even looking at Madeleine, but at the wall of the tiny cottage. It had been damaged by weather – many winters’ worth, if Madeleine was any judge – and from the pile of stones at his feet it seemed Javert was trying to repair it. Yet he had gone about it clumsily, with stones of the wrong size wedged in where they would never hold. The contrast between the tall and severe man and the childlike workmanship was oddly touching. “Not to bring me bread, surely. It is a long walk up from the town.”

“I was worried about you,” said Madeleine. He almost regretted the words. But then thought, _and why should I not admit it?_ “I had hoped to see you sooner.”

Javert flinched - a small movement, but unmistakable. His body tensed and he looked away: not toward the small cottage or the town below, but upward, to the stacks of hills and cliffs that loomed over them. Madeleine also looked carefully off at the empty landscape and remained still. It cost him effort, since what he longed to do was reach out: touch the man's shoulder, prove to himself that they were both real and rooted on this hillside and together under the broad lonesome dome of sky. He wanted to lay himself open again as he had done in Javert's quarters eight days before. He longed to plead with Javert, although he was not sure what he would plead for. Innate caution, however, warned him to look away and wait quietly, as he used to do long ago in his hunting days when his path took him into the path of a fox or wolf of Faverolles. 

He waited, scarcely breathing, trying to contain his nerves and all his hopes. 

His heart lurched when Javert stood abruptly. He had said the wrong thing, and now the man was going to stride off. But Javert remained anchored, his boots welded to the soil as he continued to stare into the distance. Finally, he cleared his throat. Then he made a stiff gesture toward the door of the little shelter. His voice was rough and sullen. He said, "Will you enter?" 

Only then did Madeleine dare to look at him. Javert still kept his eyes averted, his face inscrutable. 

Both men had to bow their heads going through the door. Madeleine stepped inside carefully, making no sound with his feet as if entering a church. Inside it was dim, even with the door left open, for there were no windows. The floor was dirt, packed hard and, it was clear, recently swept with scrupulous care. Even in the crevices along the walls there were no dust-piles or cobwebs. In one corner stood a variety of tools familiar to Madeleine, as they were the same ones found in his childhood home and every farmer’s cottage. His eye went at once to the long-handled pruning blade. He ached to pick it up and feel the heft of it. All the tools bore the same proud and flawless shine that Mere Voisier imposed upon the silver service week after week. 

There was only the one room and no furniture. Half the floor was covered by a pallet. It was very clean, sewn of rough blue cloth with uneven stitching along the border. A single blade of hay poked out along the seam; Javert pulled this free with a frown and tossed it out the door. A length of rough unfinished wool evidently served as a blanket, for it lay folded upon the makeshift bed, its corners square and precise.

Madeleine was unsure where he was meant to sit. But Javert folded himself unceremoniously and sat on one side of the pallet. So Madeleine did the same. “You sleep here?” he could not keep himself from asking. “Mme. Chorin says you no longer spend the nights in your lodgings.”

Javert nodded without meeting his eyes. “The farmer who owns these fields is moving his family into the town. He will not plant this year. He is allowing me to live here in return for--” he waved a hand toward the door – “keeping an eye on things.”

“But you are still renting from the Chorins?”

“Yes,” he said with a trace of wariness. “For now.” He muttered, “I have become accustomed to Mme. Chorin’s cooking. And I think she may still require some help, occasionally, keeping the house in good repair. That is the only reason.”

“Ah. Well, good.” Javert turned a penetrating look on him, and he reddened slightly. He had meant that it was good Javert still remained anchored, at least partially, to the home that was so close to Madeleine's own. He had not yet slipped beyond Madeleine’s reach. They might see each other on the street, and visit at each other's lodgings, and perhaps with time-- 

But of course that was foolish. He would soon go to prison, and it could not matter where Javert made his home. Abruptly, he stood up. 

“Will you show me what you were working on outside? The wall there is damaged from frost-heaves, I think. Shall we look at it together?”

After they went out, Javert pulled on his gloves again. “Here,” he said, pointing. “The stones are loosened and some have fallen. The wind comes through it in the night. I am trying to fill the holes.” 

Madeleine nodded. “We repaired this sort of damage every spring, back home. First I and my father. Later I and my sister, and the little ones tumbling about and running to us with rocks, crying, ‘Use mine! Use mine!’ May I?” He bent and chose a rock of the right shape. The ones Javert had already laid were not firmly set. He moved them about into better position, trying to be surreptitious, but when he glanced at Javert he found the other man watching him. 

“It is best that way, then – with the narrow sides alternating with the wide.”

“Yes. Then when it is finished, one worker holds a board against the outside, while the other taps at the new stones from within to wedge them hard." He added, “So it requires two people. Perhaps on another day, when all the stones are in, I can return.”

“All right,” said Javert. He took up a stone and set it in place. 

They worked for a little while in silence, the mud-smell of spring gathering around them. His arms ached pleasantly and his suit had become smeared with mud, so much so that his clothes were barely distinguishable from the rough ones worn by Javert. This filled him with secret exultation. He sucked in a breath and tipped his head back to feel the sun on his face. How was it possible that in four years, he had never looked up from the city to notice the hills and recognize their glory? 

“My grandfather lived in a cottage like this," he said. "Built with his own hands. When he married a local girl he added a second room with a hearth so she could cook.” He wiped his hands on his hips. “This wall is nearly done. By tomorrow you should have it ready. It will be snug. After the stones are all in place, we can fill in the chinks with clay, or mud and moss. That is how it was done where I grew up.” He had said “we” by accident; a presumptuous word. Javert, fortunately, did not seem to notice – or if he did, he did not mind. “And then your toil will be over.”

Javert said gruffly, “There is still the roof to fix. And another cottage up the slope some ways, and a third beyond. They look worse than this one.”

“You will repair them as well?”

“Yes.” Javert looked up toward the high peaks, where the sky moved from clearest blue to turquoise, like the depths of a lake. A touch of pride showed in his countenance. He straightened, stretching his long lean body. 

“Shame to see the fields empty," Madeleine observed, "when the sun and rain are ready to bring forth seedlings.”

“Plourde said I may use his land if I have a mind to. But I am no farmer.”

Madeleine knelt and pried up a clod of earth. First he sniffed at it, and then he licked a bit off his finger. Then he squeezed it in his hand so a few murky drops fell from his fist. “This soil won’t hold grape. Hardy apple would do well, though. Northern pear, even, if the summer is not too dry.” He straightened and faced Javert squarely. “I went looking for you at Mme. Chorin’s,” he said, “because I hoped you would join me tonight. At my home, for dinner.”

Javert froze, then recoiled slightly. “Monsieur le maire.” He looked down at his dirt-blackened clothes. 

“Please.” Madeleine was aware of the hollow in the center of the word as it left his lips: an emptiness that held the yearning in his chest, the same way a cup holds water. 

Javert hesitated. Finally he bowed stiffly – a gesture that seemed out of place between two muddied laborers on a hillside in the spring. “Thank you, Monsieur. Of course.”

The air was warm and sweet, and Madeleine could not suppress his joy. “Yes? Then I must go straightaway to tell my housekeeper. I assure you, she will be overly delighted.” He stood a moment, taking in the sight of Javert. He wanted to say more, for his heart felt large inside him. But he knew no words that spoke in the proper language. 

Scrambling down the hill towards home, heedless of the mud - for he could not get any dirtier than he already was - he paused partway down and turned back for one last look. He was a little afraid that the hill would be bare, the small hut and the man beside it gone, like a magic world from a children's tale. Overhead a line of geese passed in an angled phalanx, their heavy bodies held improbably aloft by the ceaseless engine of their wings. The cottage was still there. The dark tall figure had stepped a little ways away from it and stood alone, straight as a tree, with his head thrown back and the line of his throat making a pale arc as he turned slowly, and watched the birds sweep north across the sky.


	38. ecrain

Javert paused on the edge of the city where the dirt road turned again to cobbles. He stomped his boots to knock some of the mud off. The bright din of the city assaulted him: human voices shouting, horse-hooves clashing against stone, doors slamming. He smelled the overpowering odors of rotting vegetables and manure and smoked fish. Civilization closed around him, its fumes and grease and noise soaking the air and asserting its dominion over him. His courage flagged, and he fought a physical desire to turn back. But he made himself press on.

In the relative quiet of his quarters he changed his clothes and trimmed his whiskers. His face in the glass looked unfamiliar, his own eyes glinting darkly back at him under their heavy brows. His face did not seem to match his clean and proper suit, but he could not understand which one – face or suit – was to blame. He disliked the sight of himself and turned away quickly. Then he sat down to clean his boots. It was too early for Mme. Chorin to appear at his door with her polish and rags in hand, asking for them. 

When he had made himself entirely ready but no less nervous about the coming ordeal, he looked out the window. The light was slipping out to sea. He did not want to be back on the public streets or in the home of M. Madeleine until it was dark. On the other hand, he did not enjoy his quarters and wished to stay here not a minute longer than he had to. Though he tried to ignore it, he was constantly aware of a foul cloud that hung in the air here. It emanated from the black knapsack, which remained in a corner of the floor where it had been hunching for over a week. Every evening as he ate he looked at it with dread and shame. 

He should, of course, get rid of it. He had thought of this many times. He had thought of the weight of it and the hard splash it would make as it struck the Canche. But he had not been able to pick it up, or even to approach it. 

Tonight, then. 

He took a shuffling step in its direction and felt nausea, and then immediately disgust at himself. Could he do no better than this? He forced his feet forward and seized the bag with both hands. The leather was cool and slick, the feel of it making him think of things dead and dying; of Bamatabois face down in the street and the many corpses he had laid hold of in his life. He paused. His knuckles were turning pale as if the thing were sucking the blood from him. He braced himself to hear the voice of excoriation he knew was coming. Ecrain was watching him. Ecrain knew his intentions; he had already planned his punishment. 

But no voice came. The noises of the city could still be heard from the street outside. The firm step of M. Chorin approached the front door. The door banged, and the man could be heard grunting as he pulled off his boots. There was nothing else. 

“Ecrain,” he muttered. He was frightened. “Ecrain, you fucker." He swallowed, his throat dry enough to crack. "Speak. Speak to me.”

All he could hear in the room was his own too-loud breathing and the squeak of leather as he crushed it in his sweating hands. He glanced all around the room. It was too quiet, as quiet as an open grave or a walled-in lightless cellar. Ecrain had abandoned him. Releasing the bag, he stumbled back in terror. 

It landed off-kilter, the top slipping sideways until it sagged over the base; it appeared to be bowing to him. He watched it suspiciously, but it remained in that position as if it had no strength to right itself. Ashen, he adjusted his hat and backed away. He wiped his hands on his coat to dry them so he could turn the door-handle. "Next time," he muttered at the bag. "You won't stop me." 


	39. bienvenu looks on from heaven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to Groucha and Fengxiaoj, who have put so much time into reading this and giving me invaluable encouragement and critique and most of all, a level of attention that makes me really honored and grateful. And also to Arran, Alexa, MidnightV, and many others who haven't let me quit. Thanks, everyone. <3

“Come in.” The mayor stood back from the entranceway and beckoned him inside. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Javert found himself already flustered. He had fallen into something of a trance while waiting on the doorstep and looking into the blind brass eyes of the ram’s-head knocker. He had been reflecting with some bewilderment on the fact that he had faced its pupilless gaze twice before: the first time as a slave, the second as a killer.

 _And now?_

“Monsieur,” he said. He almost forgot to bow. His collar itched his neck, and he tugged at it as he stepped over the threshold. In the hallway he paused uncertainly. Both times he had entered here before, he had been sure of his purpose and his place. Certainty had been preferable. He glanced around, unsure what to do next. Finally M. Madeleine offered to take his hat and coat. 

His ears pricked up at the sound of a familiar voice, speaking in warm tones behind a closed door. “Madame Chorin is here?” he said in surprise.

“Yes,” the mayor answered with a smile. “I am afraid the womenfolk have leagued themselves against us. We are entirely at their mercy. Won’t you come and sit down?”

They moved toward the sitting room, and Javert’s discomfort mounted as M. Madeleine motioned him into a chair. All right; he would sit. He had refused to do so once before. The memory of that first night made him cringe. 

The mayor’s company was harder to endure than it had been in the hills this afternoon. There, he had been secure in his own territory and had had work to set his hands to. He found himself again tugging at his collar. 

“So,” said Madeleine, clearing his throat. “It is good of you to come. Did you get any more repairs done on the cottage wall after I left?”

“Yes.” That sounded incomplete. “Quite a bit. Thank you for inquiring.”

M. Madeleine fiddled with his pockets. Then he said, “I saw the chief inspector today at the mairie. He spoke of you. He hopes to see you soon. You are going to meet with him to discuss your return, are you not?” 

Javert flushed. “Does he truly want me back?

“Yes. Did you not hear that already from his lips?”

“I could not believe he meant it.”

The mayor was stroking his jaw as if trying to smooth away a flaw. A damp scent of nervousness came from him, as if he too felt awkward - though Javert could not imagine why he should. “Listen Javert. I will tell you something. That night on the docks, when you leaped from the shadows: you saved my life. I knew then that you are meant to do this work. To guard and protect people from danger. It is your nature. Do you not agree?”

Javert frowned. He had never thought of his work this way. He guarded the law, as he had been trained to do. He protected the whole of society and preserved order. He had always seen in himself the wolf that M. Lemois had told him of long ago, the wild beast of Asturias who was destined in maturity to turn against his own kind. It was his calling to defend the borders of the sheepfold and, for the sake of public order, to bring down any creature who threatened disturbance. But never had he thought it his business to care about the sheep. He was an alien among them and always had been. 

Yet M. Madeleine had a point. On the night the mayor had gone to the docks and put himself in the path of death, Javert had not followed him because of the Code Penal. A different instinct had drawn him out. He had felt it again when he saw the prostitute with her back to a wall, hemmed in by angry men; and the girl walking alone in her red kerchief through the melting snow. She had walked with naive confidence, unaware that she courted danger. She had been innocent - for a last few moments – of the fact that there were wolves in the city night who hunted prey like her. But he had no such innocence, so he had followed as her protector. 

Perhaps, then, there was a place for him. He could make his home in the wilderness and come down from the hills each night to stalk the ash-dark city and keep watch over its people. They were a domesticated breed lacking his vigilance and strength, and did not understand savagery like a man who had been born to it.

On the other hand, he had failed the girl in the red kerchief. He had faults and weaknesses now, when as a younger man he had been a perfect instrument of the law.

“Perhaps someone must stand guard over the innocent,” he said, bringing the words out with painful slowness, as his thoughts ground against each other. “Someone should defend those who are too weak to defend themselves and see that they are kept from harm. But I am not sure I am fit for that work.”

“I am,” said Madeleine. “I have been sure for a long time.” 

Mme. Chorin appeared at that moment, smiling. “Monsieur le maire. And Monsieur Javert; it is good to see you here. Your dinner is prepared, messieurs, if you will take your seats.”

The dining room had been transformed since the first time Javert had seen it on the night of his arrival in Montreuil. The entire table glinted with silver; he had never seen anything like it. Two rich-looking candlesticks made up the centerpiece, flames fluttering atop tall yellow candles like bright flags atop twin masts. A faint flush came over him as he sat down opposite the mayor. 

He would not sit on the floor, this time. 

Mme. Chorin withdrew and returned with a bottle of wine and a wooden tray of warm bread split lengthwise. M. Madeleine’s housekeeper swished into the room right behind her, bearing aloft a platter under a silver dome. She stood by the mayor’s seat and removed the cover with a flourish, revealing beneath it a large bird, golden-skinned, surrounded by a lake of ruby sauce. Curls of steam clouded the air above it. 

“Shall I guess,” said M. Madeleine, smiling. 

The housekeeper shot him an oblique, triumphant look. “Have you any complaints to make?”

“I would not dare. It looks delicious.”

“I assure you that it is!”

“You have been right all along. Shall we be allowed to eat, or only to admire?”

The housekeeper set down the platter and served them each in turn, spooning the glowing sauce over the meat so that their plates glistened in the candlelight. Mme. Chorin poured the wine. Her presence made the opulence of the dining hall less formidable; she was wearing one of the two worn dresses he was accustomed to seeing her in, and had her usual look of unguarded ease and kindness. The delectable smell of the food made him momentarily dizzy with desire. The mayor’s housekeeper continued to hover near the head of the table, hands on hips. “Don’t forget the sauce,” she said warningly. “It’s the best part.” Mme. Chorin put a calm hand on her shoulder and drew her back. Then the two women went away through the door to the kitchen, the housekeeper striking her heels loudly as if annoyed. Javert's eyes returned to the candlesticks. There was something about them that kept drawing his attention. Perplexed, he looked from them to the man at the head of the table, and back again.

Madeleine was glad to be alone again with just Javert. His happiness had a giddy edge to it. Everything looked just as he had hoped. The silver service gleamed. He had not eaten on silver since he had dined at the Bishop's table, and it dazzled him today as much as it had then. He was glad Mere Voisier had followed his request and laid out all six settings. “I’ve never seen that done,” she had sniffed, “when it is only two to dinner.” But she had humored him anyway.

“I hope you like duck,” he said to Javert. “I myself have never tried it. Usually I have boiled beef, but my housekeeper likes an occasion.” Javert took up a wedge of meat from his plate and tore into it with his fingers, bolted it, and licked the red sauce from his lips. Madeleine set down his fork. After a moment’s hesitation, he used his hands on the meat as Javert had done. 

“So,” he said. “We were speaking of Magritte. He remains short-handed, and he tells me there will soon be more fights on the docks and more trouble everywhere, now that the weather is turning. I would like you to meet with him tomorrow and announce your return.”

“I will meet with him,” Javert said warily. Under his breath he added, “And if I do not come back to my post, there will be no one to put Bamatabois in prison.”

“He wonders, also, if you would like a partner assigned to you. He is also thinking to hold a ceremony of welcome, since you did not have one before.”

“No ceremony. And I work alone.” Javert put his hand down flat on the table and bared his teeth. “Why did you not denounce me to him and demand my arrest? I meant to kill you.”

“You know why.” This above all, he wanted to make Javert understand.

“No,” the other man said harshly. “I do not.”

Javert’s mouth and chin were stained red from Mere Voisier’s sauce. He glared fiercely with his lips drawn back, his snarl framed by the thicket of whiskers. His big hands gripped the edge of the table. His whole presence bespoke a wild uncouthness. Between them the candles flickered, throwing off a benign light. 

In a quiet voice Madeleine said, “Captivity changes men. It changed me and it changed you. It made us both capable of terrible things. But I think… it did not destroy what we truly are. We can both return from what we suffered.” He looked at the candlesticks. “I have come to think-- that that is what God wants for us.”

Javert tore off another hunk of meat with his hands. “I do not know anything about what God wants. I suppose I never did.” He took a rough swallow of wine. “It’s good,” he grunted. 

For a while they both chewed and neither spoke. Then Madeleine said, “I saw deer tracks near the path leading to your cottage. There is a wood to the east. It would be a fine spot for hunting.”

“That is not a sport I am familiar with. In my life I have only hunted men.” 

“Ah.” He could not imagine a boy’s childhood devoid of the lure and romance of hunting. Where he had grown up, every man hunted and every young boy longed to. The mantle of manhood was passed from father to son in this manner, over a rifle. Your father trained you in the use of it, how to hold it, clean it, care for it so it would last a lifetime, how to find deer and avoid capture for poaching. He taught you that the the lives of your mother and sisters might one day depend on you knowing how to use it well. The true sacrament that marked a boy’s life in the rough country around Faverolles was none of the ones that the priest spoke of. It was when you brought down your first deer for your family, and became a man in at least one of the ways that counted. His father had begun teaching him in the autumn of the year before he died, and Jeanne's husband had continued his education. But he had not taught Michel.

“It requires a deep understanding of the creatures. One must know their ways and their needs.” As Javert did not answer, he spoke on, mostly to calm his own nerves and fill the silence. “In the forests near where I grew up, sometimes I would wait hours in hiding. I could nearly feel myself growing roots until I became a part of the wilderness. The creatures lost their fear of me then and came easily along their trail so I could get a clean shot.” He smiled. “It is much like what you are used to, hunting men, perhaps. But there is a kindness to it. The game is not the enemy, but only a fellow creature of the countryside trying to survive in a harsh world. Sometimes when we were starving, I was still sorry to kill a deer – for they looked hungrier even than we were.”

Javert looked at him silently, forehead drawn as if he were considering. His eyes flicked back to the candlesticks. 

“I miss it,” Madeleine continued. “The forests near my home village. The smell of powder on my hands. I have not been hunting since before I went away.”

He began to describe the forest in the simple words of a country man: the trees, the smell of the wind, the ponds whose smooth surfaces were patterned by the shadows of the overhanging leaves. As he spoke, Javert raised his head and listened intently, ignoring the food before him. He looked as if he were transported by Madeleine’s description, as if it were something wonderful out of fable. As indeed, to Madeleine, it was. “I would like to go back someday,” he finished wistfully. “Perhaps not, though. Perhaps it would be too sad now that things have changed.”

“You grew up in a good place.” Javert wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It sounds like a thing to see.”

These words warmed Madeleine. He was suddenly sorry about the grandness of the table, which put too much distance between himself and Javert. The great length of polished wood struck him as excessive, and he wished now that they were together on Javert’s hillside instead, sitting on the ground and eating bread and farmer’s cheese from a basket and passing a wine bottle back and forth. “You know,” he said, “you do not have to address me formally. When we are alone, you should use “tu.” 

“Ah. As you wish. A less formal address, then.” He gave Madeleine a long measured look. “I have been thinking the same thing.” 

“Oh – have you?”

“Indeed. I have been thinking, just this minute, that I should be calling you _Jean._ ”

Madeleine, who had been lifting his glass, set it down too hard. “I beg your pardon?”

Javert’s gaze was dark and revealed nothing.

"Jean, did you say?" Madeleine asked faintly.

“Jean Valjean." His jaws snapped around the words. "Would that name please you?”

In Madeleine's lap his hands found each other; his heart pounded at the underside of his chest. “Yes,” he managed at last. The word emerged half-voiced, half-whispered. He looked again at the candlesticks, and reminded himself he was in God’s hands. “It would please me very well.”

“It is settled then.” Javert thrust more duck into his mouth, his teeth doing violence to the soft flesh. 

Madeleine could not eat. He waited for another word from Javert, but none came. Finally he said in a low voice, “Will you arrest me?”

“If I do, they will take you to Toulon. In chains. And when that happens, believe me, this time you will never leave.” He looked down at his own wrists. “You showed me your face, and your scars, and you described Toulon to me. And now you have brought me here and shown me _those._ ” He nodded toward the candlesticks. “I have been blind all these months. Now tell me why you shown me all this. Why have you given yourself away?”

Madeleine, still trying to compose himself, answered carefully. “I treated you badly when you came. It is only your right to know who I am. I surrender myself to you, so that--" and he gulped "--so that you may deal with me as you wish. I have resigned myself to being your prisoner. Also-- I wished to show you that you are not alone; you are not the only man ever to be--” He could not finish that sentence, so he shrugged helplessly. “I have been waiting a long time for you to know me.”

Only then did he see that Javert had gone white and was trembling all over. 

“Javert,” he said. “Are you all right.”

“I cannot arrest you.” Javert’s eyes were darting around the room as if he no longer recognized where he was. “Valjean. Jean Valjean. Do you know, I studied your case when I was in Paris. Tell me why you robbed the chimneysweep.”

It was an unexpected question, and Madeleine considered. Finally he said, “I think for the same reasons you had when you attacked me.”

“Which are what?”

“It is what I said before. Imprisonment changes men. It makes one mad, and it makes one hate.”

“Those marks you showed me on your back. Did I ever—“ Javert swallowed, staring straight ahead. “--whip you?”

“Yes,” Madeleine said softly. “But I do not blame you for it. Not anymore.” A groan came from Javert, and he pushed back his chair and stood up. Madeleine went immediately to his side. “You are shaking. Let me help you.”

“I am fine.” But Javert leaned heavily against the table. He looked torn open.

“Please let me.” Madeleine felt emotion swell inside him, more than his body could contain. In Javert's countenance were self-loathing and doubt and humiliation and despair; and Madeleine could read all this with ease because he and Javert had been hammered and twisted in the same pit. He had a desire to take the man into his arms. 

Javert made no further move but only stood leaning on the table with a look of sickness and devastation. “Mere Voisier has prepared the spare room,” Madeleine said. “Come.” He took Javert by the elbow. At first the man pulled away roughly. But Madeleine took hold of him a second time, more firmly. “Come with me. Come and rest. It will be all right.” And this time after only brief resistance, Javert nodded dumbly and allowed himself to be led away from the dining room and into the spare room, where he sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. His glassy stare was unfocused and his shoulders slumped. 

“It will be all right,” Madeleine said again. 

“How can you say that? I cannot understand this. You are the mayor; a respected man. You told me all you suffered, and I saw the injustice of it. And now I realize it was Toulon, not England, where those things were done to you. You wore a red smock and I called you a beast and struck you. I believed that was all you were - I was sure of it. And now you are something else - a good man, and I-- what am I? I am one of the ones who-- I am no different from--" He winced, and broke off. And when he spoke again, his words were fierce. "And you could have had Magritte arrest me for attacking you. It would have been revenge and justice both. Yet you commanded him not to.” He shook his head and hissed, “I don’t understand. We are two criminals here. Two animals.”

“We are two men. Nothing more.”

Javert snorted. “A man, am I?" He spread his hands before him and staring down at them as if he did not recognize them, said angrily, "You are sure?”

“Yes.” Madeleine nodded. A great hot light was blazing within him, expanding him, as if all of Heaven were inside him. “We have always been men, I think. Even when the cruelties of this world made us forget it, and only God remembered the truth.”

At that Javert put his face in his hands and said no more. After a moment Madeleine said, “Wait for me,” and went to his bedroom and found nightclothes, which he laid at Javert’s side. “You need to sleep. Shall I stay with you, or would you rather be alone?”

“I cannot arrest you,” Javert muttered again. “I cannot see that there would be any justice in it.” Then he straightened and gave Madeleine a look of desperation. “What kind of officer will I be if I cannot abide by the law?”

“Meet with Magritte tomorrow,” Madeleine said gently, “and let him return you to your position. That is the only way to ever know.” 

Javert nodded. An odd sound came from him; after a moment Madeleine realized Javert was grinding his teeth. “Yes. That is the only answer. Though I cannot arrest you, it would be outrageous to let Bamatabois escape his due. I am unable to complete my duty, but that is no excuse for abandoning it entirely." His forehead was creased in heavy ridges. "Leave me now. I need to think.”

Madeleine, reluctant though he was, nodded. But as he turned to go, Javert gave an ugly laugh and said, “And if I wake in the night and come to crush your skull as I did before?”

The bitter words moved Madeleine. Javert; so broken and still so proud. Yet God’s love was boundless, and his mercy larger than the ocean. This was the secret he would teach Javert. There was no telling how long it would take. Perhaps the rest of their lives. 

“I don’t believe you will do that. But if you do,” he smiled, “know that you are already forgiven.”

*

In the sitting room he reached up to touch the crucifix. In truth, he would have liked to remain at Javert’s bedside. He wanted to draw the blankets over him and sit beside him in the dark, as he used to do for Michel while the pain of the infected arm made him cry quietly in the night. He would have like to undress Javert, even, and help him into his nightclothes the way he had occasionally done for the younger children when Jeanne was too ill or could not leave the baby. It was a foolish desire from long ago, and he smiled at himself. 

“Well?” came a voice behind him. It was Mere Voisier. He had been lost in thought and had not heard her approach.

“It was the best meal I have ever had,” he answered truthfully. “Will you prepare it again tomorrow?”

“Certainly not, monsieur! Duck is for special occasions only.”

“Ah. Forgive me.”

“Tomorrow it will be coq au vin. And it must be made with good wine or it is not worth the trouble.”

“I will leave more money out so you can purchase what is necessary,” he said humbly.

After she had marched off to the kitchen trailing clouds of glory, he went outside, for he wished to breathe in the night and pour out his thanks to God with no roof above him. Standing on the edge of his street he swept his eyes over the rising dark swells to the north, where the land rose toward Heaven. Moonlight traced the rises and dips, making shadow topple onto shadow. High above, he could just make out the jagged, noble outline of the bare black cliffs. “I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my salvation,” he whispered. He remained there for a long while, while the air turned chilly. Finally his eyelids drooped and he went inside.

Passing Javert’s room on his way to his own, he heard a sound within - a muffled moan, like a man trying to bear his anguish quietly. 

His eyes were already accustomed to the dark, and as he entered the room he made out Javert’s form, huddled on the edge of the mattress against the wall. He was grinding his face against the pillow while his hands twisted into the blanket, stiff as claws. There was a choked sound, then an audible swallow.

Madeleine sat beside him on the bed. Javert writhed away violently, turning his face to the other side. Madeleine took hold of his shoulders. He gripped them hard. The hard knotted sinews twisted under his hands as Javert bucked against his hold. This was what a man was made of: flesh and suffering. But something more as well. To man was given a soul that brimmed with God’s mystery, a common language it shared with all other men. 

He did not know any words that could ease Javert’s burden. Javert continued to wrench against him violently, gnashing his teeth, his body stiff as carved wood and giving no quarter, his head turned rigidly away. Madeleine ached to bring him comfort. The few things he thought of saying seemed too glib or too small for the depths of Javert’s agony. So he merely held on. 

Gradually Javert’s struggles gentled. Perhaps Madeleine's presence had calmed him at last; or he had simply worn himself out. The rigidity of his muscles eased and his breathing became more regular.

Madeleine released his shoulders and put a hand on Javert’s back. The nightshirt from Madeleine’s closet was too broadly cut, so that Javert seemed to be swimming in it.

“I lost my family,” he said thickly. “Michel, my nephew--” All at once a lump was in his throat. “Maybe this year, you would come hunting with me. I could show you how.”

Javert became more still. He did not answer. But there was a whisper of fabric from the pillow, and perhaps the shadow of a nod. And Madeleine left his hand where it lay, feeling the rise and fall of Javert's ribs, listening to the breaths which became slower and more restful. He could feel love pouring out through his hands, through his palms and fingers. Javert seemed to sink down deeper into the mattress. He gave a long sigh. Eventually, Madeleine understood he had crossed over into sleep. He straightened the blankets, then sat for a while with his eyes closed, listening to Javert breathe in the darkness.

He was stiff when he rose. Still he could not bear to go to bed. He wandered instead back to the dining room. It had been cleared and neatened, and the silver place settings removed, so nothing was left on the table but the two candlesticks with their candles burned halfway down and drips of wax hardening on the silver. 

He relit the candles and sat to watch them burn. He felt raw; his eyes welled up though he did not know why. Through the refraction of his tears, the twin flames blurred into each other like a single brilliant sun that swelled until it filled his vision and he could see nothing else. 

He had to sleep. Tomorrow would be long, as it was the day he held his hours as magistrate - the day half the town came to him with their petty disputes, demanding his ruling.

He found he was looking forward to it.

**Author's Note:**

> I had deep thoughts for this one.
> 
> The bishop had great joy in being alive and loving God. I've always thought that Valjean (in the book) never felt that; after Digne, he embarked on an endless uphill slog of self-denial and trying to earn redemption from a judgmental God. I wanted to write a story in which Madeleine got to quit striving for saintliness and returned to what really made him happy: being simply Valjean and having a family again.
> 
> Javert was written as feral and wolfish by nature. As a young man he adopted a love of law and order, but his predatory instinct was what drove him - nothing thrilled him more than a successful hunt, and he always seemed most at home prowling the criminal underworld at night. (I intended to have a flashback to a Javert as a wolfish, half-savage orphan before he became Lemois' protege, but it was too cumbersome.) 
> 
> So - a story of two guys twisted by trauma and the exigencies of hard living, who find peace by embracing their true natures. Hope it worked. Constructive criticism is always welcome :)


End file.
